


This Be The Verse

by Vermin_Disciple



Series: "This Be The Verse" Verse [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Adoption, Alien Biology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Existential Crisis, F/M, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Jadzia Dax Lives, Kid Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentors, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Non-Traditional Families, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Canon Cardassia, Post-Finale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-02-20 07:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22013896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vermin_Disciple/pseuds/Vermin_Disciple
Summary: 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:10, and three of Starfleet’s newest ensigns are huddled together on the couch in pristine new uniforms, each with a single shining rank pip. They’re not talking anymore, but the silence is a comfortable one. Like him, they’re keeping watch. They’re wondering when they will see this again, so many of their family and friends gathered together in celebration. Ben could tell them the answer, of course. He could look into all their futures. He won’t, because if he does, the present may be lost to him forever, and the present is all that matters, in the end. But the present is made of pasts, because that’s what linearity means.Or, a study in the myriad ways children are influenced by experience, circumstance, and the adults around them (sometimes in ways those adults didn't intend).
Relationships: Jadzia Dax/Worf, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak, Kira Nerys/Odo
Series: "This Be The Verse" Verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756516
Comments: 40
Kudos: 101





	1. Upward Over the Mountain

**Author's Note:**

> This somewhat off-brand experiment started with me musing idly about kidfic as a genre (and why I often find it more interesting in theory than in practice), Star Trek canon’s various successes and failures at creating children for canon characters, and ST canon’s enduring love affair with Daddy Issues (I mean, props to _Discovery_ for trying to even things out by giving Burnham four different mother figures to have issues with). Then I started casting an eye on DS9’s principle characters and contemplating all the ways these clearly dysfunctional people could totally fuck up their children. This line of thinking quickly spiraled out of control, and somehow resulted in what I mentally dubbed my ‘hideous [Babies Ever After](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BabiesEverAfter) kidfic AU.’ I knew going into it that I didn't want to write anything too cute or cloying, but, in spite of my original premise, I also decided that I wanted to avoid the melodramatic conflict and estrangement that characterizes a lot of the parental issues in ST canon. (The reader must of course decide for themselves whether or not I succeeded.)
> 
> The title comes from Philip Larkin’s This Be The Verse, a poem that is best known for its opening lines: _They fuck you up, your mum and dad. // They may not mean to, but they do. // They fill you with the faults they had // And add some extra, just for you._
> 
> The primary points of AU canon divergence here are that the baby Changeling from “The Begotten” (S5E12) survived, Jadzia was not killed in "Tears of the Prophets" (S6E26), Bashir and Garak managed to resolve all those years of UST sometime in the later seasons, and all this resulted in (nearly) everyone’s canon endings getting scrambled.
> 
> It's been years since I posted a WIP, so just to reassure you, chapters 2 and 4 are complete, apart from final editing, and I'm about half-way through the first draft of chapter 3. You should also be warned that this fic does feature children in dangerous and traumatic circumstances (but only in flashbacks, and nothing is particularly graphic).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Galen knew in his heart that he would never be happy on Cardassia, but rejecting it still felt like a betrayal._

_So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten_  
_Sons are like birds, flying upward over the mountain_  
-Iron and Wine, Upward Over the Mountain

* * *

Much of Cardassia Prime was inhospitable to most plant-life, even after all the soil rehabilitation programs started in the wake of the Dominion War. Silvery fields of rulot grew in the northern hinterland of every major city, but most of their crops were imported from the colonies. Private and community gardens were common enough in the capital, though they all seemed to have the same five plants growing in them: squat rokassa trees and yamok root, old staples of the Cardassia diet because they were nearly impossible to kill, Bajoran kava and katterpods, and spirapin, a ubiquitous native weed that folk wisdom imbued with every curative power imaginable (while it wouldn’t cure Rudellian plague and had a negligible effect on scale rot, it was relatively good for bronchodilation when steamed). Galen’s yadik somehow managed to grow Edosian orchids in their garden, though he refused to share his methods with anyone.

In the early days of the Hebitian civilization, Cardassia had been as lush as the Amazon. Now, most of its native flora and fauna were extinct, and had been for centuries. Galen sometimes thought that Cardassian biodiversity across the entire planet was only a fraction of what could be found in Aunt Keiko’s garden. He and Yoshi had spent most of the morning weeding, and now they were on their hands and knees in the dirt, carefully spreading a thick layer of mulch around everything. Molly had excused herself from helping them, claiming that she had a stack of engineering journals to get through before she started her new assignment, but Galen suspected that she would join them as soon as they moved on to harvesting the tomatoes. Every year, without fail, most of the cherry tomatoes disappeared somewhere between the vine and their baskets, much to Keiko’s exasperation. 

Maybe while they were picking tomatoes, he would finally have an opportunity to ask her a few questions about Starfleet Academy. He’d been looking for an opening all week, but it never seemed like a good time, and, well, truth be told, he was feeling a little tongue-tied around Molly these days. All morning he’d tried to keep his eyes on the soil, but every few minutes he couldn’t help glancing over to where she lay sprawled on the grass with her bare feet in the air, nose in a PADD, sunlight beaming down on smooth brown shoulders exposed by a sleeveless shirt that would have been practically illegal on Cardassia. It was too much to hope that Yoshi hadn’t noticed him looking, and he’d probably never stop laughing as soon as they were alone. 

It was all very unfortunate, because she had just finished her last year at the Academy and he really would like to _talk_ to her without his hormones turning his brain into sludge. Dad would probably say that it was perfectly normal and nothing to be ashamed of. Yadik would tell him that physical reactions could be mastered and controlled with sufficient self-discipline. And Uncle Miles would advise him to take a cold shower, and then tell Molly to put on a proper shirt. (Which would hardly be fair; it was hot out by human standards, and it wasn’t _her_ fault his brain had turned against him). Maybe he should ask Jadzia what to do. At least she was capable of giving sensible advice. 

The sound of a hovercar landing on the other side of the house signaled that Keiko’s summer classes had adjourned for the day, and she joined them a minute later. She hadn’t changed out of her overalls, so she probably intended to make sure that her garden hadn’t fallen into ruin in her absence (and that at least some of her tomatoes would make it into the salad). Yoshi sat up on his knees to greet her, wiping sweat from his brow.

Aunt Keiko was impressed with their progress, though not with their skincare. “You look a little red, honey. Are you wearing any sunscreen? What about you, Galen? Your dad will never let me hear the end of it if I send you back with all your skin peeling off.” 

Normal Cardassian skin didn’t burn. Cardassians didn’t appreciate being exposed to bright, direct sunlight, but it was only their eyesight that suffered. His parents had been quite shocked the first time they brought him to Earth and discovered that the more intense UV exposure turned him the same color as the grass. His dad had been full of self-recrimination for not having anticipated it. 

“He always blames Uncle Miles if I injure myself,” said Galen, “so I wouldn’t worry about it.” 

Nevertheless, they were both sent back to the house to apply sunscreen and find themselves some wide-brimmed hats, Yoshi grumbling about mothers the whole while. 

* * *

He’d had a mother once. Galen saw her in bits and pieces and flashes that would not coalesce to form a complete picture in his memory. She had short hair. She never darkened the center of her chufa with the blue make-up that was still ubiquitous among the pre-war generations of Cardassian women. Her fingers always seemed rough and calloused. Her voice was soft and she never raised it, even when she was angry. She had a way of smiling that reminded him of Yadik – like she was sharing a private joke with the universe. 

Yadik had found the old Obsidian Order files on her. There were probably pictures, but he’d never asked to see them. The idea of replacing the ghostly dream image in his memory with something solid frightened him, though he couldn’t explain why. Yadik never offered up more information than Galen asked for directly, so perhaps he understood. 

She’d been stationed on Romulus when the Order was destroyed. Her project must have been too sensitive to warrant extracting her for the invasion of the Gamma Quadrant. She disappeared from the record at that point, resurfacing on Cardassia Prime a year later under an assumed name. Her re-entry into the grand Cardassian bureaucratic paperwork generator had coincided with his birth. Occupation: cook, in the household of a minor official in the civilian government. Class: serving. Marital status: widowed. Cause of admittance: obstructed labor. 

His biological father had never even seen him. According to Yadik (and how Yadik had come by the information he did not know), the man had been executed by the Tal Shiar for treason. His human father (with whom he’d never discussed the matter) would no doubt see the outline for a tragic romance, full of intrigue and adventure. But Galen was enough of a Cardassian to see it for what it was: sordid and ugly, a tale of folly and misery. 

“Did you know her?” he’d asked. 

“Not well,” said Yadik. 

Galen was torn between wanting to know what Yadik thought of her and being afraid to know, so in the end, he didn’t ask. He didn’t doubt for an instant that Yadik did have an opinion about her, even if he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know her well. Yadik sized people up almost instantly, like Holmes or Poirot or one of the other human detectives in Dad’s collection of mysteries, though he usually kept his methods to himself. Yadik must still have been in the Order when he met her. Had he thought she was a good agent? A bad one? Which alternative was worse?

She never seemed very happy in his memories. His impression might have been colored by later events, though he doubted it. The world they had shared was a confined one, an assortment of small dark rooms and whispered voices. His first memory of being outside was when they pulled him from the rubble of their collapsed house, the day the war ended. He could remember his mother’s voice warning him to stay silent and still, to wait for her, she would only be a moment. He could remember her back in its simple black dress, her bobbed hair, and her brown boots as she walked away from him, disappearing up the stairs. He remembered the noise, and the tremor in the floor, and his own heart pounding with dread, and his incomprehension of it all. But he couldn’t remember the expression on her face the last time he had seen it, before the Dominion reduced the house to a mound of debris, crushing everyone on the upper floors. The basement where his mother left him had survived mostly intact, and so did he. 

He hadn’t seen her body, but he remembered it anyway, because his imagination conjured it up over and over again to haunt his nightmares. 

It wasn’t that he missed her, exactly. How could you miss someone you had never really known? Even his curiosity felt a bit morbid. Sometimes he was glad she was dead, even though he knew it was a terrible thing to think. He couldn’t help but wonder, though, if she had lived, would he still be hidden away in that basement? 

* * *

When Uncle Miles emerged from his workshop he found them at the kitchen table with tall glasses of lemonade and grimy faces. Yoshi had pulled an Andorian harmonica from his pocket and started playing a melody he’d written. Galen tried to listen with a critical ear, but couldn’t come up with anything constructive. The tune was pleasant and cheerful and he liked it well enough, but in spite of Yoshi’s best efforts music just wasn’t his forte. Yoshi kept asking his opinion anyway. 

“Is that new?” asked Miles. 

“Yeah. I’m thinking of calling it ‘The 40 Degree Gardening Blues.” 

“If you find this inspiring, you should try gardening with my yadik during a Cardassian summer. You’d have to write an opera to cope.” 

Apart from the excessive UV radiation, Galen found the weather in Davis quite pleasant at this time of year. Too bad it was usually chillier in San Francisco. 

Miles poured himself a glass of lemonade, but didn’t join them at the table. “I need another pair of hands. Any volunteers?”

Yoshi shot him a slightly desperate look. “I will,” said Galen, and Yoshi mouthed ‘thank you’ at him while his father’s back was turned. Galen didn’t mind. All things considered he would have preferred to return to the garden, but this seemed a perfect opportunity to finally ask the question that had been on his mind since he landed on Earth two weeks earlier – and the year leading up to that, if he was honest. 

An hour later, he still hadn’t asked, but he had added a layer of grease to his clothes to go with the smudges of dirt. They worked in companionable silence, apart from Miles’ periodic instructions or requests for various tools. Half his mind concentrated on the task at hand, while the other half tried to work out how to phrase his request. He caught Uncle Miles watching him with a thoughtful, slightly amused expression. 

“What?” 

Miles shook his head, grinning. “I was just wondering how Julian and Garak managed to produce such a quiet kid.” 

“Easy. I never get a word in edgewise at home.” 

Miles snorted. “Now that I can believe.” 

It wasn’t true, not really. The first unofficial rule of the Bashir-Garak household was that everyone had to hold their own around the dinner table. They never let him fade from the conversation for long without asking him his opinion on something. Mealtime conversation at the O’Brien’s was a more desultory affair, and no one seemed particularly bothered if he didn’t feel like talking much. Not that he couldn’t appreciate a good debate, if the subject interested him or he felt strongly about it, but not everything needed to be dissected in minute detail and mined for its philosophical subtext. 

“Uncle Miles?” 

“Yeah?”

“Um. I wanted to ask you something,” he said, suddenly feeling far younger than his 18 years. 

“I’m listening.” 

“I’ve decided to apply to Starfleet Academy, but I’m not a Federation citizen, so I was wondering if you could write me a letter of recommendation?” He winced internally at his tone, at the way the words just tumbled out of his mouth with no confidence or finesse. 

Miles broke into a grin, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Of course. I’d be happy to,” he said. “I bet Julian is ecstatic. He’ll probably drive Garak up the wall, but that can’t be helped.” 

“I haven’t told them yet. I’d rather, uh, wait until I’ve been accepted. If I get accepted.” 

“Of course you’ll get in,” said Miles. He gave Galen a hard look for a moment. “Your secret’s safe with me.” 

“Thank you.” 

Dad would be happy for him, that much was true. He would probably be pleased, but Galen wasn’t so sure about ecstatic. Dad usually spoke of his time in Starfleet with fondness, but there were occasional traces of bitterness there too. Years ago, he’d overheard his parents arguing (a _real_ argument, not the kind that served as flirtation), and Yadik had said, in his iciest tone, “Would you be here at all if you’d had any hope of career advancement?” He thought it was something to do with the genetic enhancements, which the Federation disapproved of. Galen didn’t take the accusation completely seriously—Yadik had a way of contorting the truth into a weapon when he was angry—but there was probably some glimmer of realty behind it. If his father had been perfectly happy with Starfleet, why would he have left it to move to Cardassia? 

And then there was Yadik, who, well… had never spoken highly of Starfleet. Mostly this was just to rile up Dad, but not entirely. He did have a certain respect for the Federation and Starfleet (not that he would openly admit it), but that did not mean he would be thrilled to see his only son in uniform. (Yadik found Starfleet uniforms particularly offensive.) As much as Cardassia had changed since the war, and even adopted a few Federation ideas, Yadik always insisted that it was crucial for them to maintain the core of Cardassian customs, values, and ideals. 

Galen knew in his heart that he would never be happy on Cardassia, but rejecting it still felt like a betrayal. 

* * *

He was about eleven, lying on the grass in a suburban park outside London, with _The Never Ending Sacrifice_ glaring up at him from his PADD. His dad had gone off to a medical conference on Mars and left him with his grandparents for the week. It was the first time he’d ever been on another planet without either of his parents. So far, he was enjoying himself immensely. Usually, visiting his grandparents was the tensest part of any trip to Earth. He always found himself holding his breath, waiting for Dad’s and Granddad’s sniping to explode into a full-blown row. They couldn’t seem to help themselves. 

It was marginally better if Yadik was there as well, because he had a knack for distracting Granddad with colorful—and highly improbable—tales of his nefarious past, and then at least they could usually get through dinner without anyone spontaneously combusting. Unfortunately, these stories did not have the same ameliorative effect on his grandmother, who often listened with a strained expression of concealed alarm. Galen had once overheard her confronting his dad about it in the kitchen after dinner. 

“ _Some_ of it may be true. I don’t bother trying to get a straight answer on anything so trivial. Don’t worry about it, Mum.” 

“Trivial? I do hope you know what you’re doing, Jules.” 

“I wish you would stop saying that. Just trust me on this, alright! I know perfectly well, far better than you do, who Garak _was_. Right now, I’m only concerned with who he _is_.” 

This time, Yadik was lightyears away on Cardassia Prime, Dad had barely stepped foot in the house before beaming back up to the shuttle, and as a result, Galen had gained an all new perspective on his human grandparents. They didn’t particularly understand him, and he didn’t particularly understand them, and through mutual incomprehension they got along splendidly, although his grandmother had stuffed him so full of zalabiya in the past week that he must have put on 5 kilos.

They were also perfectly happy to let him wander off on his own, as long as he came back before dark, something expressly forbidden to him in Cardassia City. Danger of any description was practically nonexistent on Earth, and an unattended child with an alien face attracted little attention so long as he didn’t look lost. He’d discovered the park on his first day out, and kept coming back to revel in the feel of soft grass and examine the fallen chestnuts littering the ground. Even the chill didn’t bother him too much, and besides, his grandmother had insisted on wrapping him in a new sweater before he left the house. 

Really, the only thing less than idyllic about today’s excursion was his choice of reading material. 

A shadow fell across his PADD, and his whole body tensed. “Hi! I know it’s a really rude question, but what _are_ you?” 

Galen blinked, and sat up. A human boy near his own age, with light brown skin and springy black curls, was peering down at him with undisguised curiosity. “Uh, Cardassian. And Romulan.” 

“Oh. I was thinking maybe Denobulan. I’ve never met a Cardassian _or_ a Romulan before. My grandfather is Vulcan, though, and they look pretty much the same as Romulans.” He turned his head and pulled his hair back, revealing a pointed ear. “I guess we’re sort of like distant cousins. My name is Maaz, by the way. What’s yours?” 

Maaz didn’t seem to believe in pausing between sentences for breath. 

“Galen.” 

“Nice to meet you,” said Maaz, and to Galen’s continued mystification, he plopped down on the grass next to him. “Are your parents dissidents?” 

“What?”

“I thought most of the Cardassians and Romulans living in the Federation were political dissidents. They either get exiled or have to escape so their governments can’t execute them.” 

“I don’t really know anything about my biological parents, apart from their species.” Galen didn’t point out that the Cardassian government didn’t perform many executions these days, and had in fact recalled many of its ‘dissidents’ after the war. 

“They were probably dissidents,” said Maaz, sagely. “What about your adoptive parents, then?” 

“They’re definitely not dissidents,” said Galen, just to get _that_ out of the way. “One of my fathers works for the Cardassian government, and the other is a doctor. He’s human; I’m here visiting my grandparents.” 

This was evidently too mundane an answer to hold Maaz’s interest—as if in his world the idea of Cardassian officials marrying Terran doctors was in no way noteworthy—because he immediately switched topics. “What are you reading?” 

“It’s called _The Never Ending Sacrifice_. It’s a Cardassian classic.” 

“Is it good? I’ve never read any Cardassian books.” 

“It’s… fine.” 

“Most Earth classics are _boring_.” 

“It is a _bit_ boring.” He felt a little stab of guilt at the admission. “Yadik—my Cardassian father—thinks it’s the greatest thing in all of Cardassian literature.” 

“Do you like any holonovels? I think _Photons Be Free IV_ is supposed to be out next month.” Before Galen could answer, Maaz suddenly jumped up and started waving ecstatically. “My friends are here,” he said, pointing to a group of children (two other boys and two girls) now heading in their direction. “Wanna play hoverball with us?” 

“I haven’t played before.” 

“It’s easy!” said Maaz. “Well, the rules are easy, anyway. The game is pretty hard. I’m actually really bad at it. But it’s still fun. C’mon!” 

None of Maaz’s friends objected to adding an interloper to their game – or if they did, they were better at hiding it than any Cardassian children were. At Maaz’s gleeful suggestion, they played ‘hybrids vs. wholes,’ which put him and Maaz on a team with a girl who was half-human and half-Bolian. (The other team consisted of two humans and one Betazoid.) He didn’t think there were three half-aliens living on the whole of Cardassia Prime, let alone in the same neighborhood. And if there were, he knew from experience that full Cardassians didn’t play with them, except in organized school activities. 

He returned to his grandparents’ house two hours later, tired and sore and happier than he’d been all year. 

When his dad returned a few days later, they transported over to California to spend the day with the O’Briens before heading back to Cardassia. Galen and Yoshi rode bicycles (an archaic form of transportation that always took him a few minutes to relearn how to steer) to the university’s arboretum, where they wandered idly around the duck pond, chatting about school and parisses squares and the upcoming installment of _Photons Be Free_. Then, Galen asked a question that had been on his mind since his encounter with Maaz in the park. “Are most of your classmates human?” 

“I dunno. Probably. I never counted, but it is Earth, and even in a college town there’s still a human majority. I’d say about… two-thirds? Three-quarters if you count everyone who’s part human.”

“That many.” Galen tried to imagine what that would be like, to not stand out in a crowd. 

“I wish my parents still worked on a starship,” said Yoshi. “Everyone is so _boring_ here.” 

“Just be glad you’re not going back to Cardassia.” Maybe something in Yoshi’s tone, so casually lacking in the filial deference expected of Cardassian children, emboldened him. Or maybe it was just that Kirayoshi O’Brien was his best friend. But Galen finally voiced the words that had been hovering in the back of his mind all week, a guilty secret. “I wish I could just stay here.”

* * *

The entrance exam went well – far better than he was expecting, in fact. The acceptance letter arrived a few weeks later. It was just a formality, really, but seeing it there on his PADD still elated him. He carried it around with him all day, and couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Neither of his parents were home yet, which was just as well, because he still wasn’t sure what to say to them, or what excuse he could use for not telling them that he had applied. 

By the time dinner rolled around, he thoroughly understood that human expression involving having a stomach full of lepidopterans. Galen picked at his food, only half-listening to an argument about how much the latest wave of popular music resembled the mid-20th century Terran folk genre. 

“Don’t be surprised if half the university students in Lakat are growing their hair out and smoking illicit substances in a few months.” 

“I fail to see what this unfortunate infatuation with Terran guitars has to do with poor grooming practices and abuse of one’s lungs.” 

“Galen, are _you_ at all familiar with Bob Dylan? I think Bazet must be.” 

“Hmm?” 

“Are you feeling alright?” asked his dad, frowning. “You haven’t eaten much.” 

“I’m fine.” He forced a smile. “Great, in fact. But there is something I need to tell you.”

“Does it have anything to do with the subspace message you received from Earth this morning?” asked Yadik. 

“I thought you’d decided to support the right to privacy amendment to the new constitution,” said Dad, raising an eyebrow. 

“Monitoring incoming and outgoing subspace transmissions within one’s own household is a perfectly reasonable safety precaution. I don’t open them unless they appear suspicious.” 

Dad jabbed an accusatory fork at the air in Yadik’s direction. “Yes, but _you_ have an overly broad definition of ‘suspicious.’” 

“I don’t think he read this one.” A half-smile and shift of the eyes told him that he was right. Besides, if Yadik already _knew_ the tone of this conversation would be different. He swallowed. “It’s from Starfleet Academy. I’ve already sent in my acceptance.” 

There was a rare moment of shocked silence that would have pleased him if he hadn’t been so nervous. Then his dad made an indecipherable noise and snatched the PADD out of his hand, concerns about privacy forgotten. His eyes widened and his face split into a grin as his eyes skimmed over the letter, and then he was on his feet pulling Galen up and into a rather suffocating embrace. “This is wonderful! Congratulations! I am _so_ proud of you.” He pulled away so that he could better examine Galen’s face. “Why didn’t you tell us? I could have helped you study for the entrance exam.” 

“I just wanted it to be a surprise, that’s all.” 

“You know you don’t always have to adhere to Cardassian secrecy,” he said, but he hadn’t stopped smiling. “I assume Miles already knows.” 

“Probably. He wrote my recommendation. I still need to tell him that I got the official acceptance today.” 

Uncle Miles’ prediction of ‘ecstatic’ turned out to be an understatement. Galen was soon subjected to a barrage of questions, exclamations, and advice that probably wouldn’t be as helpful as intended. He also had the distinct impression that his dad was going to end up on subspace tomorrow messaging everyone he had ever served with, and he wondered if he could convince Yadik to sabotage the comm system until Dad calmed down. 

Yadik had said very little since his announcement, apart from a mild, “Congratulations, Galen.” That worried him a bit.

Starfleet Academy dominated all conversation for the rest of the evening. Yadik’s mood remained unreadable, his occasional comments unusually restrained. Even his remark about San Francisco necessitating thermal underwear lacked any real bite. (Besides, Dad had agreed with that one, and then spent the next 20 minutes detailing Starfleet’s policy on uniform fabric modifications to accommodate the medical needs of different species.) He supposed that he should take _lack_ of acerbity as a good sign, but it didn’t feel like one. Though he was grateful when Yadik stepped in to drag Dad off to bed. “Let the child go to sleep, my dear. You still have a few months left to assail him with all your dubious reminiscences.”

Dad waved him off. “Yes, alright, I’ll tell you about Boothby tomorrow, then.” 

“If he keeps me up all night deciding what inoculations you’ll need to survive the dormitories, I’m blaming you.” 

As soon as they thought he was out of earshot, this was followed by a low, “I can think of better ways to keep you up all night.” 

Superior hearing was not always an asset in this household. 

Galen wished he had a better idea of what Yadik thought about his decision. His alternate plan, which Yadik _had_ approved of, had been Lakat University. In the immediate aftermath of the war, their Exobotany department had been heavily involved in revitalizing the planet’s long neglected agricultural program. Their research continued to be extremely innovative (not to mention well-funded), and was the very emblem of academic state service. Some of it might even have been interesting. Perhaps in the more socially progressive world of the university, he might even have been able to find people willing to look past his pointed ears. 

There were too many mights and maybes in that scenario, however. What Starfleet offered were _promises_.

* * *

The only alien faces he’d ever seen were the ones that glared up at him from pages of his textbook, unless you counted the one that greeted him in the mirror every morning. The entry on humans featured two pictures, one man with dark brown skin and curly black hair and one woman with light beige skin and long yellow-white hair, both with identical sullen frowns and empty eyes. They unnerved him, the way all the aliens in their books unnerved him (looking back on it now, he suspected that that was the point). The worst were the Romulans and the Vulcans, their expressions blank but somehow menacing. If the other children saw what he did, it was no wonder they wanted nothing to do with him. 

But Dr. Bashir had an easy smile and gentle hands. 

The other children had been lined up in the dorm so the nurses could distribute an assortment of hyposprays, but Galen had been led into the always-empty visitors’ room by himself, and Guardian Flagan ignored him when he asked why. He hadn’t done anything wrong, not that that ever seemed to matter to anyone. Surprise froze his feet to the floor when the man fiddling with a machine attached to a portable biobed turned around. There was something inexplicable about a human dressed up like a doctor – not that he’d had any notion of how humans dressed, but somehow he’d always imagined that their clothes would be as exotic as their smooth faces. 

“This is the hybrid child, Doctor,” said Guardian Flagan. The human doctor frowned a little as he thanked and dismissed her, and Galen realized that not only was he in the same room with an alien for the first time, but he was _alone_. 

The human crouched down on one knee and smiled at him. “Hello there. My name is Dr. Bashir. Ms. Flagan says that you haven’t been feeling well, so I’m just going to give you a check-up, alright?”

Galen wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say anything, so he just nodded. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Galen,” he said. 

Dr. Bashir’s face lit up at this. “Really? Now that is interesting. Did you know that there was a very famous doctor on Earth thousands of years ago named Galen?” 

Galen tilted his head to one side, intrigued. 

“Have you ever thought about becoming a doctor when you grow up?” 

No one had ever asked him what he wanted to do when he left the Center for Unconnected Children. People with no family status to rely on had a limited number of options, and he’d been vaguely aware, even then, that his future would hold nothing but drudgery and tedium. 

It was a little beyond him to voice such suspicions, so instead he said, “Boys can’t become doctors.”

“Of course they can, if they want to. I did.” 

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to help people,” said Dr. Bashir. “You know what, though? When I was your age, I was _terrified_ of doctors.”

“Really?”

Dr. Bashir nodded. “The doctor I was most afraid of was Dr. Xint. He was a Caitian; they look a bit like giant humanoid razorcats, all covered with fur, with these _huge_ fangs.” He curled his fingers and held them next to his mouth to indicate fangs. “He was very nice to me, but I was always afraid that he would bite me if I didn’t behave.” 

“Did he ever?”

“No, he didn’t,” said Dr. Bashir, shaking his head. “When I got older and decided that I wanted to become a doctor, I found out that all doctors have to swear an oath promising that they will never bite their patients. We’re not allowed to hurt anybody, unless hurting them a little bit is absolutely necessary to find out what’s wrong with them or to help them get better. For instance, sometimes I need to take a sample of a patient’s blood, which stings a little, but it may be the only way to find out why they’re sick.” 

“Are you going to take any of my blood?”

“Not today. But I would like to scan you with my tricorder. I promise it won’t hurt at all.” 

By the end of the exam, Galen decided that while he was still a little afraid of doctors in _general_ , he liked Dr. Bashir. Perhaps it was only Cardassian doctors who were scary. 

“I’m going to give Guardian Flagan a hypospray with some vitamins to give you at breakfast, alright? That should stop you from getting headaches and feeling so tired in the afternoon,” said Dr. Bashir, jotting something down in his PADD. “I need to go around to all the rooms that you and the other children spend time in, so I can scan them and make sure there’s nothing in the building that can make anyone sick. Would you like to be my assistant? You can show me around.” 

“Okay.” Shyly, he reached out and took Dr. Bashir’s hand in his own. His skin felt strange—warm and soft—but not unpleasant. 

Dr. Bashir and his nurses returned a week later, and there was another round of inoculations. Galen once again found himself alone in the visitors’ room with Dr. Bashir and his tricorder, though this time he was eager for Guardian Flagan to leave so that he could have his new human friend all to himself. Dr. Bashir still had his tricorder, but this time he sat on the floor and asked Galen a bunch of questions. 

“Do you know how to write your name?” 

“Yeah.” Dr. Bashir handed him a PADD and stylus, and he carefully scrawled the familiar figures in small, shaky strokes. 

“Very good,” said Dr. Bashir, and Galen beamed. Guardian Flagan thought he was stupid, but Dr. Bashir didn’t. “Would you like to learn how to write it in Federation Standard?” 

Galen had never even seen anything written in any Federaji language, and he watched in fascination as the doctor wrote out G-A-L-E-N in neat blocky letters. Galen dutifully copied it, and was quite pleased by how similar it looked to Dr. Bashir’s writing. 

Dr. Bashir asked him about what they ate (thin and watery sem’hal stew, mostly), what time they went to bed and whether he slept through the night (21:00, and hardly ever), whether he ever got tummy-aches (often), whether he enjoyed doing exercises (the morning ones were okay, but he had trouble keeping up with the evening ones, and they made it hard to breathe), and what games he liked to play with his friends.

“I don’t have any friends. One time Koras asked me to play on the gyro-swing with him but he just spun me around and around and pushed me off.” He held up his arm so Dr. Bashir could inspect the scab. 

Dr. Bashir frowned as he ran dermal regenerator over the wound. “What did Guardian Flagan do when you told her?” 

“No one else saw. She never believes me if she doesn’t see it.” 

“Has Guardian Flagan been giving you your vitamin hypospray everyday?” 

Galen shook his head. Dr. Bashir’s frown deepened and he sighed. 

Dr. Bashir became an almost daily presence after that, turning up in the mornings at breakfast or after dinner in the evenings in his doctor’s smock. When the doctor turned up in casual clothing one afternoon, it took Galen by surprise. 

“Are you still a doctor?”

Dr. Bashir chuckled. “Yes, but it’s my day off. You can call me Julian, if you like.” 

After that, Galen took to staying within sight of the window as often as he could, just in case.

“When are you going back to Earth?” He didn’t want Julian to go, but he was human, so that must mean that he would have to go back to his own planet someday. 

“I’m not. I’d like to stay on Cardassia Prime.” 

“Is that allowed?” 

“I certainly hope so.” Galen didn’t ask why, because he didn’t want Julian to think that he didn’t want him to stay. 

Another day, Galen asked, “Do you need an apprentice?” 

Julian seemed amused by the question. “That’s not really how it works in medicine. You have to go to school to become a doctor. Have you decided you’d like to be one after all?” 

“That’s how you leave,” said Galen. “Someone takes you to be their apprentice. Or sometimes they find a cousin or an uncle to adopt you. Or sometimes they send you to be a servant.” He wrinkled his nose at that. “Do you need a servant?” 

Julian looked a bit startled at the question. “No. They don’t have servants in the Federation.”

“But you live on Cardassia now.” Galen hoped this didn’t mean he was planning on going back to the Federation. 

“Yes, but I’m still a Federation citizen. It wouldn’t be right for me to have a servant. Besides, you don’t really want to be a servant, do you?” 

Galen shook he head, because it was true, he didn’t want to be a servant, although being Julian’s servant would still be better than staying in the Center. 

“Does anyone ever get adopted by someone who isn’t related to them?” 

“I don’t know,” said Galen, perplexed. “Why would they?” 

“Lots of reasons,” said Julian. “Sometimes it’s because they can’t have their own children and they don’t want to use any sort of medical intervention. Sometimes it’s just because they think that children are better off being raised by families instead of institutions, and they want to do something to help. That’s how it works in the Federation, anyway.” 

Galen didn’t think it worked that way on Cardassia. He wondered if Julian would want to adopt him if they _were_ in the Federation. He didn’t think so; Julian was human as much as he was Federaji, and humans probably only adopted human children. 

Julian didn’t come alone on his next visit, and the man who accompanied him was a Cardassian. “This is Elim. He’s my…” Julian paused, apparently uncertain what Elim was to him, finally settling on, “ _vakari_.” 

“Is that allowed?” Galen asked, examining Elim critically. 

“An intelligent question,” said Elim, with an odd little half-smile. “It is unusual, but allowed.” 

He overheard them later while he was lying on the floor experimenting with wax coloring sticks Julian had called ‘crayons.’ Adults always forgot that his hearing was much better than most Cardassians. 

“Vakari? Are you proposing, my dear Doctor? I thought human tradition required some sort of exchange of jewelry.” 

“I didn’t hear you suggesting anything. ‘Boyfriend’ seems a bit frivolous under the circumstances, and there isn’t a Kardasi equivalent for that anyway. As far as I can tell, Cardassians go directly from casual flirtation to marriage in about ten seconds flat. I’m surprised you didn’t propose during our third lunch.” 

“It might have been worth it just to see the look on your face. Would you like me to propose?” 

“Not if you’re going to be an ass about it.”

“I don’t actually object to your use of vakari, though I do think it warrants some discussion before you start throwing it around.” 

“I—oh.” Julian seemed to be at a loss for words. “Uh, _would_ you like to discuss it?” 

“That is what I just said,” said Elim, clearly amused. “Though perhaps it can wait until we get home.” 

Galen wasn’t sure what to make of the sudden existence of Julian’s Cardassian vakari(or whatever he was). He’d always imagined Julian being completely _alone_ on Cardassia. He’d entertained the idea that Julian stayed with the other Federaji rumored to be in the capital, but since Galen had never seen any other Federaji, this possibility seemed remote. Now it turned out that Julian shared his home (wherever that was) with a _Cardassian_. His attachment to Julian had taken a turn for the proprietary of late, and the idea that _his_ human might belong to someone else (Federaji didn’t count) was more than a little distressing. 

On the other hand, if Julian was willing (and evidently permitted) to _marry_ a Cardassian, perhaps adopting one wasn’t out of the question after all. 

* * *

_The building shakes all around him, rattling the shelves, dishware crashing to the floor. Without warning, the lights go out, and he feels even more alone in the darkness. He wants to cry out for his mother, but she told him to be quiet, and he doesn_ _’t know if he can even make a sound when the room is jerking him around so violently. Everything goes still, suddenly, and there’s a light somewhere above him, people shouting. He sees his mother lying face down on the floor, blood pooled around her and seeping towards him. They’re pulling him up and away from her while he flails helplessly, trying to tell them that she’s down there too, that they need to save her to, but he still can’t find his voice._

Galen sat bolt upright in bed, holding his head in his hands, desperately trying to stop the scene from replaying on a loop in his mind. That wasn’t even how it happened, he knew. There was no blood, no body—just him alone in the darkness under a collapsing house. His heart was pounding too fast and he could barely breathe, and it was so damn ridiculous. He grabbed Lakatwo from his bedside table and focused all his attention on the stuffed bear, trying to inhale slowly through his nose and exhale slowly through his mouth. Two ears, each a half circle stitched to the head. Brown fur on the outside, pink felt inside. The seam on the left one coming apart just at the base, where it connected to the head. Hard plastic eyes, with blue irises and black pupils right in the center. A black nose embroidered with Yadik’s neat stitching, after the original nose had fallen off. 

He half-expected (and perhaps even wished) that one of his parents would show up to comfort him, the way they did when he was a child. They always seemed to _know_ when he was in distress. He could almost hear Dad’s voice in his head, calm and steady, telling him to breathe, counting each breath until his heart-rate slowed. The trick with the bear had been Yadik’s. _“It’s alright, Galen, you’re going to be fine. Just tell me everything you see. It’s not a test_ – _there aren’t any wrong answers. But sometimes when we’re afraid of things that aren’t real, it helps to focus on something that is, like Lakatwo here. Just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it can’t scare you. No, it isn’t just you_ – _everyone is afraid of things that only exist in their imaginations. Yes, even Julian. Yes, even me. Now, how many ears does Lakatwo have? What color are they? How are they shaped? What do they feel like? Every detail you can think of.”_ Then, when he finally calmed down, he would get a story, and go back to sleep. 

Galen’s breathing eventually evened out, and his heart stopped thundering like a stampede in his chest. The idea of trying to sleep again filled him with dread, however, so instead he stood up. He reverently reinstated Lakatwo on his customary perch, and crept down the hall, heading for the library with a PADD in hand. He didn’t realize the light was on until he opened the door, and by then it was too late. 

“Yadik? What are you doing up?” 

Yadik was sitting in one of the armchairs with a mug of rokassa juice, examining a collection of papers spread out on the coffee table. As his eyes adjusted to the lamplight, Galen realized they were sketches. 

“I could ask you the same question,” he said. “But I don’t intend to, so you needn’t worry.” 

There was something very familiar about the style of the artwork, though it took him a moment to place it. “That one looks a bit like the painting in the hall.” 

“It’s by the same artist.” 

“All of them?” 

“Yes.” 

Another work caught his eye. “That looks like you.” Yadik didn’t say anything. “It is you, isn’t it? You knew the artist?” 

“A long time ago. She was about your age when she drew these. And not much older when she died.” 

“Who was she?” He wanted to ask, ‘who was she to you?’ but he knew he’d never get a straightforward response to a question like that. 

“Her name was Tora Ziyal.” 

“‘Ziyal’ is Cardassian, but it’s a given name, not a surname, and Tora sounds Bajoran.”

“Very good.”

“What happened to her?”

“That is a very long story. Suffice it to say, she died during the war.” 

Galen sat down in the other armchair and joined his yadik in examining Tora Ziyal’s drawings. She’d been talented. 

“You had the nightmare again, didn’t you?” said Yadik, after a few minutes. 

Galen shifted uncomfortably in his chair, wondering if he was that easy for other people to read, or if it was just his yadik. “It’s been _years_. I thought it had finally stopped.” 

“It may never stop entirely. Once every few years is a vast improvement,” said Yadik. “I don’t think you slept through the night once the first month you were with us.” 

“I remember you used to take turns reading to me.”

“Yes. Though I can’t imagine how Julian’s horrible Terran fairy tales could possibly have helped matters.” 

“As opposed to all those Cardassian fables about how blind obedience to your father is the highest ideal?” 

“Clearly they didn’t have the desired effect, but at least none of them involved cannibalism.”

“I never minded the gruesome stuff. I liked all of them, really. I think you could have read me _The_ _Never Ending Sacrifice_ and I would have enjoyed it.” His stomach squirmed in retrospective embarrassment. “Sometimes I used to stay awake and _pretend_ I’d had a nightmare just so one of you would come back and read to me again.” 

“I know,” said Yadik, with a fond smile. “Julian attached a micro-biomonitor to your pajamas so that he could track any disturbances in your sleep. I daresay we would have known anyway, since you were usually in no condition to come and fetch us when you really had woken from a nightmare. We couldn’t decide what to do when you started lying to us. It was a subject of some disagreement.” 

“Oh. Um. I’m sorry?” 

Yadik gave him a long look, his expression difficult to read. “You were a four-year-old suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress, something the Center for Unconnected Children had neglected to take much notice of. It was hardly surprising that you reacted to positive attention by wanting more of it, and we certainly couldn’t blame you for not wanting to go to sleep.” 

“But that must have been stressful for you.” Both of them had been deeply involved in the post-war recovery and reconstruction. Adding to their burdens seemed terribly selfish, looking back on it now. 

“I don’t see how experiencing panic attacks on an almost daily basis when you were too young to understand what was happening to you could possibly be more stressful for _us_ than it was for you.”

“I’m still sorry I put you through that.”

“Do stop apologizing for things that you bear no responsibility for. It’s a very insufferable habit.”

“But it’s not exactly what you signed up for, is it? I doubt the Center bothered to mention any of my _issues_ when you adopted me.” 

Yadik raised his browridges. “I would have been more surprised if you were in a state of perfect psychological health. No one else was. Besides, even in less trying times, I’m afraid that no parent is guaranteed an ‘issue-free’ child. Though most of the time it’s parents themselves who create their children’s issues. Believe me, I was far more concerned about that than about your perfectly understandable reactions to recent trauma. We had no idea what we were doing, and I was still half-convinced that no child, whatever their circumstances, could possibly be better off with us as parents.” 

“You two didn’t do _that_ badly.”

“Thank you. That is most gratifying to hear. Don’t tell him I said this, but it was never Julian’s capabilities as a father that concerned me. He’s an affectionate man by nature.” 

‘Affectionate’ certainly wasn’t the first word he would use to describe his yadik. Even so, he had never had a reason to doubt that _both_ of his parents loved him, even if he didn’t always understand them. 

Something struck him that he hadn’t thought of before. “You did know what you were doing, though. At least with the, uh, panic attacks.” 

“Yes, well, I’m afraid that was just a matter of experience, not parental preparation.”

“Really?” 

“Yes. And I can assure you that the experience is equally unpleasant whether you are four or forty.”

“You told me that everyone is afraid of things that only exist in their imaginations, even you. I always thought you were just trying to make me feel better.” 

“I was. But it also happens to be true.” He paused, as if deciding how much more he was comfortable revealing, or possibly just for dramatic effect. “I have a certain distaste for small enclosed spaces, and have sometimes experienced a disproportionately negative reaction to being trapped in one.” 

“You’re claustrophobic.” 

“I’d prefer if you didn’t spread that around. Though I suppose it’s not the sort of weakness my current enemies would benefit from exploiting.” 

“Does Dad know?” 

“Oh, he knows most of my secrets these days. I’m always a little afraid that when I finally run out of them, he’ll leave.” 

“Not a chance. You should see the way he sulks and frets whenever you’re gone for more than a few days. I’m surprised he’s never attached a biomonitor to _you_.”

“He _has_. He covertly injected me with the subdermal version once on the pretense that I was being obstinate about submitting to a wholly unnecessary medical exam. Julian’s concerns about invasions of privacy tend to evaporate if he’s the one committing them.”

“And I take it that you’ve never used any type of remote surveillance on him?” 

“Absolutely not. I’m _appalled_ that you would even suggest such a thing,” said Yadik, which probably meant that he had access to all the hospital’s security feeds. “Given Julian’s somewhat overzealous concern for your health and well-being, you might consider having Starfleet Medical scan you thoroughly for foreign objects.” There was a minute shift in Yadik’s expression when he mentioned Starfleet. 

Galen swallowed. “I know you don’t really approve of Starfleet.” He forced himself to maintain eye contact. “Are you disappointed?” 

Yadik sighed. “Yes. Though perhaps not for the reasons you assume.” 

Galen’s heart sank anyway, and he couldn’t say anything as he waited for his yadik to continue. 

“I spent most of my life trying to live up to my father’s expectations. Nothing I did was ever good enough. His intention was to mold me into a mirror-image of himself, and the results were a great disappointment to him. And he took every opportunity to tell me, in no uncertain terms, exactly how much of a disappointment I was. When he perceived my actions as a betrayal, he signed the order for my exile without even listening to my explanations. He refused to see me at all. Even after all that, I still made every effort I could to return to his good graces, because I thought that was what a dutiful son should do, and because I lived in hope that someday he might admit to some feeling of paternal pride, however minimal.

“Julian tells me that I am a better man than Tain. I don’t know if that is true, or merely wishful thinking on his part. But I do think that at the _very_ least, I can claim to be a better father than he was. So, in answer to your question, I am disappointed that remaining on Cardassia holds so little appeal for you, though I can’t say that I am surprised. Old prejudices do not fade quickly or easily, and there are limits to what I can shield you from. I know that it has not been easy for you. I may be getting soft in my old age, but even I can’t ask you to dedicate yourself in service to a society that has done little but reject you. I am disappointed, but it is not _you_ that I am disappointed in. If you didn’t tell us of your plans because you were afraid of _my_ reaction, I can only say that I am sorry for not conveying to you earlier that my pride in your accomplishments is not contingent on you following the path I may prefer for you. It is undoubtedly a sign that Julian has managed to infect me with some of his Federation ideals in spite of my best efforts, but I find that your happiness is of paramount importance to me.”

He held up his hand, and Galen met it with his own, pressing their palms together and interlinking their fingers. “Thank you.”

“My efforts to earn Tain’s love were in vain. Even if he was capable of feeling such an emotion, he was certainly incapable of demonstrating it. When Julian told me he wanted us to adopt you, I was afraid I would prove equally incapable. I hope I have not entirely failed you on that count.” 

“Never,” said Galen. 

“The only way you could ever possibly fail _us_ ,” said Yadik, very seriously, “is by not keeping up a regular subspace correspondence from whatever deep space backwater they banish you to.” 

Galen laughed, the tension finally draining out of him. “I’ll try. No promises, though.” 

* * *

“Are you ever going to tell me your secret?” 

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” said Yadik. “But the answer is probably no.” 

“About the Edosian orchids.” Every year, the orchids seemed to bloom all at once. Overnight, the garden had exploded in a dazzling array of colors, vibrant against the blanket of white spirapin flowers that inevitably sprung up in any available patch of ground. 

“Ah. In that case, definitely no.” 

The rokassa trees were going to seed, and needed trimming. The late afternoon sun cast the garden in shadows. Technically both of his parents had the day off, but his dad had been called in for an emergency surgery. Not that he would have been much help; the heat was well beyond human comfort levels, and Yadik considered him an unacceptable risk to all plant-life. 

“I wish I could take a few bulbs with me.” 

“That would be inadvisable. The Federation is unreasonably prejudiced on the subject of toxic flora.” 

“They do have some medicinal properties.”

“Are you planning on specializing in pharmacognosy?”

“Perhaps.” 

The back door opened and clicked shut behind them. Yadik couldn’t have heard it from here, but he still shot a quick glance over his shoulder in between precise attacks on the rokassa branches. 

“I’m just glad you’re not going into medicine. Julian’s going to be insufferable enough as it is, and the last thing he needs is further inflation of his ego.” 

Dad joined them in the garden, his face shining with perspiration, though he looked cheerful in spite of it. “My hearing is better than yours, you know. I can hear you all the way from the house.”

“I see what you mean about his ego. Don’t worry, I’ll stick with exobotany.” 

“If there’s one thing I really appreciate about Cardassian culture it’s the way they value filial piety. You seem to misplace yours whenever you go to Earth.” 

“Now be fair, my dear. You’re the one who insisted that we raise him to embrace all his cultural heritages.” Yadik set his clippers aside and turned, extending a hand to his husband. The pressing of palms was followed by a lingering kiss. 

Galen rolled his eyes, not that anyone was paying attention to him. “You’re going to scandalize the neighbors.” 

“To borrow a human expression, that ship has definitely sailed. It’s reached the Beta Quadrant by now.” 

“It’s too damn hot, anyway. We’ll have to wait until winter, when you’re gone, to _really_ offend the neighbors.” They did disentangle themselves, however. Dad already looked like he was in danger of melting. 

“Have you sent a message to the O’Briens, yet?” asked Dad, as they walked back to the house, leaving Yadik to his rokassa trees. 

“No. I assumed you’d want to say something to Uncle Miles.” Something embarrassing, no doubt. 

“You’ll have to get used to calling him Professor O’Brien, now.” 

Galen smiled. He’d been smiling all day, he realized, suffused with an unfamiliar feeling of giddiness. It was as if some immeasurable weight had lifted from his shoulders, like someone had turned down the gravity in the room. Outside, the sunset bathed Cardassia City in a deep orange glow. It was strange to think that 15 years ago, it had nearly all been destroyed, and him with it. Now, with his heart light and this new future laid out before him, he could almost see the same beauty in it that Yadik did. 

Perhaps some day he would even miss it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who may not be familiar with CA universities, the university Keiko works for is the University of California, Davis, which was founded as an agricultural college and is particularly known for its range of programs in the agricultural, biological, and environmental sciences. It seemed like a good place to send a botanist, and I thought that the town of Davis itself seemed like the sort of place the O’Briens would enjoy living in after spending years on a space station. (The author might also have attended UC Davis as an undergrad, which I’m sure had nothing to do with it.)
> 
> Sources for alien vocab:
> 
> - _Yadik_ , chufa, _Federaji_ , and _Kardasi_ \- Vyc and tinsnip's [English-Kardasi Dictionary](http://https/cardassianlanguage.tumblr.com/tagged/english-kardasi-dictionary)
> 
> -Most of the plants are mentioned in canon, with the exception of _spirapin_ , which is my own invention.
> 
> - _Vakari_ is mine, but it derives from the [Cardassian Sourcebook](http://https/stexpanded.fandom.com/wiki/Cardassian_Sourcebook), which lists _Vakar_ as an ancient god of storms and lightning. Given what canon suggests about Cardassian romantic relationships, this seemed like an appropriate god to associate with marriage. My official definition for _vakari_ : a person with whom one cohabits with the intention of marrying. The term is from a long antiquated custom of cohabitation as a means of testing a couple's fertility prior to marriage. (Why I felt the need to invent a whole etymology and cultural history for this I have no idea. But since I have, here it is.)


	2. Careful The Things You Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Every couple of years, the Symbiosis Commission sent Mother a Trill initiate to evaluate. Most arrived terrified._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this _still_ isn't finished. I got a little sidetracked, first by trying to decide whether/how much of the Picard show's canon to incorporate (for now I'm going to say that in this AU, Romulus wasn't destroyed and the synth ban didn't happen). Then while Chapter 3 continued to be uncooperative, I got caught up writing [a prequel set in the same universe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331495/chapters/58665778). Oops.

  
_Careful the things you say_  
_Children will listen_  
_Careful the things you do_  
_Children will see_  
_And learn_  
_Children may not obey_  
_But children will listen_  
_Children will look to you_  
_For which way to turn_  
_To learn what to be_  
-Stephen Sondheim, Children Will Listen

* * *

Organic chemistry was easy enough once you got the hang of the nomenclature. If only it weren’t so _hu’tegh_ boring. Today’s lecture had been particularly excruciating. Ten minutes in, Azetbur had received a subspace transmission, and naturally she couldn’t open it in class. She’d wanted to open it as soon as she walked out the door, but if it was the message she was hoping for, she would prefer to view it in private. Her roommate, T’Lar, would be in Intermediate Temporal Mechanics now, and Azetbur still had an hour before Exobiology. She tapped the message open and held her breath as Dr. Julian Bashir’s face filled the screen.

“Hello, Azzy. I’m afraid I have bad news for you. I’ve looked over everything I received from Dr. Jian, and I’m afraid that I agree with her projections. Since beginning the synaptic realignment therapy you’ve only had a 12% increase in the production of isoboramine, which means that you’re only able to maintain isoboramine levels at about 85% of what is required to host a symbiont. The production gains have reduced with each round of treatment, so even if you continue, it would take years to get the results you’re after, and there’s no guarantee that your body would be able to continue production at that level indefinitely. A reversal is the more likely outcome, in fact, given the strain it’s putting on your nervous system. The Symbiosis Commission would undoubtedly consider that an unacceptable risk. I wish I had an alternative suggestion, but SRT was the best option, and it’s never had consistent success rates, even with full Trill. I am sorry, but I just don’t think there’s anything I can do.”

Azetbur stood in the middle of her Starfleet Academy dorm room, staring at the PADD in her hand as if she wasn’t sure what it was.

“Repeat message.”

“Hello, Azzy.” No one called her that anymore except her mother and her mother’s friends. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you.” She recognized that expression now. That was his bedside manner face. Julian had never been her doctor, really, but she’d once broken her arm falling out of a rokassa tree in his back garden, and he’d spoken to her in that exact tone. “I’ve looked over everything I received from Dr. Jian, and I’m afraid that I agree with her projections.” Dr. Jian wasn’t currently with the Symbiosis Commission, but the Jian symbiont had been, several hosts ago, so Azetbur didn’t entirely trust her projections. The Symbiosis Commission always expected the worst so they could justify always leaning on the side of rejection. “Since beginning the synaptic realignment therapy you’ve only had a 12% increase in the production of isoboramine, which means that you’re only able to maintain isoboramine levels at about 85% of what is required to host a symbiont. The production gains have reduced with each round of treatment, so even if you continue, it would take years to get the results you’re after, and there’s no guarantee that your body would be able to continue production at that level indefinitely.” She wanted to scream. It had only been a year of treatments. Wasn’t it too early to call it off? “A reversal is the more likely outcome, in fact, given the strain it’s putting on your nervous system.” Whatever this strain was supposed to be doing to her she didn’t know, and she certainly hadn’t noticed any ill-effects. “The Symbiosis Commission would undoubtedly consider that an unacceptable risk.” They considered _any_ risk unacceptable. “I wish I had an alternative suggestion, but SRT was the best option, and it’s never had consistent success rates, even with full Trill. I am sorry, but I just don’t think there’s anything I can do.”

That was it, then: the bottom line. Julian Bashir, with his genetically enhanced mind, couldn’t come up with an alternative, and that was the end of that.

“Repeat message.”

“Hello, Azzy… bad news… agree with her projections… production of isoboramine… 85% of what is required to host a symbiont… years to get the results you’re after… no guarantee… A reversal is the more likely outcome… The Symbiosis Commission… unacceptable risk… the best option… full Trill… I just don’t think there’s anything I can do.”

“Repeat message on continuous loop.”

“Hello, Azzy. I’m afraid I have bad news…”

She wasn’t sure how much time passed before the door chimed. She continued staring up at the ceiling and didn’t move from her bed. After a minute, the door opened anyway. There were any number of cadets who could hack a simple door. The list of those who _would_ do it was shorter, since Starfleet cadets generally considered themselves too virtuous to do that sort of thing, except in cases of emergency. Some of her friends undoubtedly possessed the skills, and some of her friends might be concerned enough to check on her through whatever means necessary, but the points of intersection on those two lists were few and far between.

So she wasn’t at all surprised when Galen’s voice said, “You weren’t in class today.”

Azetbur made a noncommittal noise.

“You once came to class with Cartalian fever and had to be forcibly removed. I thought you must be dead. I just came to pick through your belongings before they box them all up to ship back to your parents.” Galen had been standing beneath the rokassa tree when she fell, warning her that the branches were too thin. He’d seemed much older than her then, but Klingons matured faster than other species, and she had caught up with him. Maybe now she was the one who was older. She certainly felt like it, today.

Azetbur finally sat up. “You’re not getting my mek’leth.”

“What would I do with an over-embellished knife? I thought I’d raid your collection of Klingon romance novels. My parents never let anything that trashy in the house,” said Galen. “Speaking of, do you mind if I turn that off? One of the advantages to living this far from Cardassia is that I don’t usually have to listen to my dad repeating himself.”

Julian’s voice cut off mid-sentence.

“No one who reads James Bond has the right to call Ch’Mara’s work trashy.”

“For some reason the Ian Fleming section of our library is very prone to suffering unfortunate accidents. Yadik swears he has nothing to do with it. I think Dad keeps replacing them just to annoy him.”

“Your parents are worse than mine.”

“My parents don’t involve bladed weapons in their foreplay. Or if they do, at least they’re discreet about it.”

Azetbur threw her pillow at him, then collapsed back on the bed and immediately regretted its loss. She heard Galen’s soft footfalls and felt the bed dip as he sat down next to her. She didn’t look at him, but she could picture his frown well enough. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sighing. “I want to be alone. And I want you to stay. I’m in a contradictory sort of mood.”

“What if I stay but don’t talk?”

“…Okay.”

He grabbed a PADD from her desk and settled himself down next to her, looking for all the world like he had no idea she was still there. His body gave off no heat, but his presence filled her with warmth nonetheless. She couldn’t quash the bitterness beneath it, though. When they were both dead, no one would remember this moment.

* * *

Every couple of years, the Symbiosis Commission sent Mother a Trill initiate to evaluate. Most arrived terrified. It took Azetbur a long time to understand this, because everyone else loved her mother. Whether as first officer on the _Boas_ or as captain of the _Endeavor_ , the crew adored Jadzia Dax. It was a universal constant. She was a source of strength and courage, hope and reassurance. They brought her their troubles and left smiling. They came to her for advice, for consolation, and sometimes just for a good laugh. She seemed to get along with everyone, from noncoms and green ensigns to fleet admirals. Her mother shone like a supernova in a star desert.

Trill initiates went through a cycle of emotions when they were assigned Dax as a field docent. First, there was the fear, and a tendency to regard every friendly overture with suspicion. Next, there was confusion, sometimes with an air of skepticism (many of them never left this stage). Finally, there was relief, and for the better humored ones, even enjoyment.

Lamari Hedyn was one of the few who arrived completely unintimidated. Her shuttle docked on-board the _Endeavor_ at 0400, but she still showed up promptly at their quarters for breakfast at 0700, strikingly beautiful and exuding self-confidence from every pore. She declined raktajino in favor of an Andorian coffee with a bouquet so strong it could have woken a saber bear from hibernation.

“I’ll be stationed on Andor for my training with the Federation Diplomatic Corps when I finish the initiate program, so I’ve been trying to develop a taste for the cuisine.”

Mother listened politely to the rundown of Lamari’s impressive personal and academic history, while Father tried not to look too bored.

“Well, you’ve certainly got the drive and the accomplishments I’ve come to expect from a Trill initiate,” said Mother dryly.

“Don’t forget the ego,” said Lamari.

Mother cracked a smile. “I think I might like this one,” she said, to no one in particular.

Azetbur was about 8 at the time, just on the cusp of jak'tahla (late for a Klingon and early for a Trill, which seemed to be the general rule of her physiological development). Trill initiates mostly ignored her and her brothers, but Lamari seemed to find her amusing, and so Azetbur became her shadow.

“If you want to be joined,” said Lamari, “then your choice of career is very important. They say it doesn’t matter as much as the physical and psychological factors, but everyone knows that’s not true. What do you want to do? It’s never too early to start working towards your long term goals.”

Azetbur had her answer ready. “I’m going to join Starfleet.”

“Not bad,” said Lamari. “Maybe a little predictable given who your parents are, so in your initial interview you should make it clear that your career path is based on your own goals and ambitions, not theirs. But you _can_ emphasize that because you were raised on a starship, you are better able to understand the risks and responsibilities of being a Starfleet officer.”

“Do you mind if I write this down?” asked Azetbur, her stylus already hovering eagerly over a PADD.

Lamari flashed one of her amused smiles. “I encourage it. What field do you think you’ll pursue in Starfleet?”

“I want to be a pilot.”

Lamari cocked her head to one side, frowning. “I’d reconsider that if I were you. Practically everyone’s done some piloting these days, often professionally. You’re better off just getting your license - never hurts to have one of those on your record - and specializing in something else. The Commission is looking for diversity of experience in their initiates. You’d be better off in something like Astrometrics. How are your grades in the sciences?”

“I do well in everything,” said Azetbur. “Except art. But they don’t give you bad grades for lack of talent.”

“That’s too bad, though. The Commission likes creative types. What about athletics?”

“I’ve trained in Mok'bara since I learned how to walk. I came in 2nd in the mek’leth event in my division last year at the regional youth competition.” She’d been especially proud of that. Klingon divisions were decided by age, not development, and some of her 7-year-old competitors were nearly twice her size.

“Excellent. The Commission prefers initiates who are well-rounded and versatile, with a broad range of skills and interests. But,” she added, “be careful about building up too many eclectic skill sets, because then they’ll think you’re unfocused or indecisive. Disparate hobbies are fine, but professionally, it’s better to develop several distinct but complementary areas of expertise. For instance, even though I knew I ultimately wanted to go into diplomacy, I decided to get my first degree in psychology, before studying political science and interstellar relations. As I explained to _my_ interviewer, I never considered psychology as a career, but I wanted a solid background in it because it’s an essential aspect of any diplomatic negotiation.”

“Did you request my mother for your field training because of Curzon?” asked Azetbur.

“In part. But I mainly did it because no one has ever requested a Dax as their field docent before. It never hurts to be the first to do something. I expect you’ll be the first Klingon hybrid to apply.” Lamari looked almost envious for a moment. “As long as you still meet all the physiological requirements, that will definitely be in your favor.”

* * *

Counselor Tigan had a soft, round face that made her look younger than she actually was. Azetbur found her voice—so friendly and conciliatory—viscerally irritating. Even when counseling sessions went from a recommendation to an ultimatum, the Academy still allowed you to select your own counselor, and Ezri Tigan was the only Trill in the staff. Now that she was staring the woman down from across a desk, she was beginning to see a flaw in her logic. The last person she wanted to discuss this with was another Trill.

“Would you like to talk about why you’re here, Cadet Idaris? Or would you rather begin somewhere else?”

Azetbur shrugged. “You know why I’m here.”

“I don’t, actually,” said Counselor Tigan. “I know why the administration recommended that you see a counselor, but that’s not much of an answer, is it?”

“You have all my records. I’m sure you can figure it out for yourself.”

“Would you like me to guess?”

Stretching this out probably wouldn’t do her any favors. “I was planning to defer my commission after I graduated and enroll as a Trill Initiate. My isoboramine levels were under the required threshold, so I’ve been undergoing Synaptic Realignment Therapy to stimulate production. It failed.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

Azetbur resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I’ve gone from the top to the bottom of all my classes. How would _you_ feel?”

“Relieved,” said Counselor Tigan. Her smile was a little self-deprecating. “I never wanted to be joined, so I’m probably the wrong person to ask.”

“You never even applied?”

Counselor Tigan shook her head. “No, it just never interested me. Personally, I mean. Professionally speaking, joining has plenty of fascinating psychological implications.”

“Why aren’t you interested in it personally, then?”

“It’s hard enough being one person. I’m not sure I could handle being several.” There was the self-deprecating smile again. “But we’re not here to talk about me. How did you feel when the SRT failed?”

“Like I had lost my entire future.” And many hypothetical pasts, as well.

“You can’t lose something you never had.”

“It’s the only future I ever wanted.”

“Being joined with a symbiont, or living with a symbiont?”

“What do you mean?”

“What did you expect the symbiont to contribute to your future?”

“Did you know that in the whole history of the Symbiosis Commission there have only been two other Initiates who weren’t fully Trill? And neither of them were part Klingon. I could have brought a completely unique perspective to a symbiont.”

Counselor Tigan raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you expected to contribute to the symbiont. That wasn’t what I asked, though. What did you want the symbiont to contribute to _you_? Your career, your experiences, your personality - what would it mean for _you_?”

“It would give me… new skills, and, uh… perspectives I hadn’t considered, and memories from before I was born, which would broaden my outlook, and, um… Obviously, all that would be an asset in Starfleet.”

“Are you sure there wasn’t anything else?”

“What else would there be?”

Counselor Tigan didn’t look satisfied by this answer, but she changed tacks. “Why did you decide to go into Biomechanical Engineering?”

“It fit my algorithm.”

“Your algorithm?”

“I compiled a database to cross-reference the careers of successful and unsuccessful applicants to the Initiate program. The Commission has a preference for candidates with unique or diverse skill-sets. Biomechanical engineering requires a theoretical understanding of both the biological and physical sciences, but it also involves practical application and creative problem-solving. Plus it’s not well-represented among current Initiates.”

“That’s very… analytical.”

“It was an important decision.”

“Does it interest you?”

“That was part of the algorithm,” said Azetbur, perhaps a little defensively.

“Clearly you have an aptitude for it, judging by your academic performance. But if you didn’t have an algorithm to go by, is that the field you would have chosen?”

“I don’t know.”

“Really? You don’t know what you’re interested in? What you enjoy?”

Azetbur was a Klingon, even if she wasn’t technically a warrior, and she wasn’t going to avert her gaze, just because she didn’t appreciate this woman’s line of questioning. “I have lots of interests. Like I said, that was part of the algorithm.”

“Then name the first one that comes to mind, outside of biomechanical engineering.”

“Flying,” she said. “I qualified as a level two pilot last summer.” Martok had taught her to fly a shuttle when she was 10, but that was their little secret. Her parents wouldn’t have officially sanctioned this (though she suspected that would both have privately approved), so they’d agreed it was best to give them some plausible deniability.

“Did you think about going into astrogation?”

“Not really,” she said, frowning. “A lot of applicants have some piloting experience, even outside of Starfleet.”

“What about now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you still want to be in Starfleet?”

“I don’t know.”

“If that’s what you wanted before, why should that change just because you won’t be joined? I’m sure that there were professions outside Starfleet that would have been an even better fit for your algorithm.”

That much was true. But she’d never really considered any of them. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

“We’re almost out of time,” said Counselor Tigan, glancing at her chronometer. “I’m going to tell you what I think, and you can take it or leave it. The most important thing is that it’s _up to you_ to decide. First of all, I’m not that concerned about your grades. With your record, I think you can eventually get yourself back on track, academically speaking, though you may have put yourself out of the running for valedictorian. But you have to _want_ that, and right now it sounds like you’re not sure what you want. You don’t need me to tell you what kind of dedication a career in Starfleet requires. You were raised with it. But it’s not a good idea to approach it with uncertainty. I’m going to authorize some temporary medical leave. My advice is that you take some time to think about what it is you _want._ No algorithms, this time.”

* * *

The worst thing about being dead was how little of it she remembered. What stood out in Azetbur’s memory was her parents faces when she opened her eyes. She’d never seen either of them looking so desperately haggard, not even after that tense, 48 hour stand-off with the Romulans that nearly ended in the ship exploding. She tried to ask them what happened, but all that came out of her throat was an inarticulate rasp. Relief washed over both of her parents faces, and Mother’s hand squeezed hers tightly.

It was only a few months before she was due to leavefor the Academy. A scientific mission had brought them in the vicinity of Brentalia and its famed zoological park, so field trips were arranged for the various classes on board the _Endeavor_. Azetbur was volunteered as one of the chaperones for Kor’s class, and knew better than to protest that she had better things to do. She probably would have enjoyed the park under other circumstances (and more importantly, other company), but it was hard to appreciated the flora and fauna when there were a dozen hyperactive middle-schoolers to corral.

They were on a plateau surrounded by a ravine and forcefields to prevent anyone from falling into said ravine. Fat, fluffy Algorian lagomorphs, around three feet tall if you counted the ears, hopped sedately across the meadow on powerful hind legs. The children were given bags of brightly colored root vegetables to feed them and permission to disperse. Her brother, of course, had started wandering further and further from the others. From a distance, Azetbur saw him talking to a zookeeper. There was a hovercraft parked on the edge of the plateau, floating above the ravine.

Something had caught her eye, but she didn’t remember what. She must have sprinted like mad to reach them, but she didn’t remember that, either. But she remembered the way the edges of the forcefield glimmered in the sun where someone had torn a hold through it. She didn’t remember diving through the opening, but she remembered colliding with the deck of the hovercraft, mostly because it hurt. There was shouting all around her. Kor. The “zookeeper.” The pilot. The hum of the engine. An indistinct cacophony of sound. The thud of the zookeeper hitting the deck. She must have tripped him. Something slammed into her face. Maybe his foot. And then… and then… then she was hanging from the side of the craft, her feet desperately scrambling for purchase. A laughing face above her. The pilot shouting to pull her up, _you idiot! We’re not here to kill anyone!_ The butt of a disrupter rifle flying towards her head. Sickbay. Her parents’ faces, pinched and hollow-eyed.

The CMO told her later that she’d been clinically dead for 24 minutes, and comatose for six days. The ill-thought out attempt at kidnapping and ransom had been thwarted in nearly the same amount of time that she’d been deceased. (You would think that the interstellar criminal community would have learned by now that abducting the relatives of high-ranking Starfleet officers never resulted in the abductors having their demands met.)

“What you did was very brave,” said Mother. She didn’t say, ‘and very stupid,’ but Azetbur heard it anyway.

“Of course it was!” said Father, beaming with pride. “A Klingon warrior is never afraid.”

But Azetbur had been afraid, not just for her brother, but for herself. Fear was an almost foreign emotion to her, and perhaps that was why it had hit her so strongly. When she saw that disrupter careening towards her, she had known with absolute sickening clarity that she was about to die. Father had told her that Honor was a shield for the soul: it helped you keep fighting even when death was imminent. But she hadn’t kept fighting. She had _frozen_. She hadn’t even _tried_ to dodge the blow, and not because she was ready to face death, but because she’d been _terrified_ of it.

As much as she wanted to, Azetbur had never really believed in Sto-vo-kor, and dying had made her more certain of its non-existence, not less. Discovering this unfortunate defect in her courage (not to mention her Honor) made her view her aspirations for a symbiont in a new light: you didn’t need to fear death if you were virtually immortal.

Her parents, though in many ways a study in contrasts, were both model officers, Starfleet’s finest, bold and fearless. But her mother often laughed in the face of death, just as she laughed along with life, secure in the knowledge that if Jadzia Dax made the wrong choices, there would be other lives and other deaths to look forward to.

* * *

“Azetbur, daughter of Worf, of the House of Martok, seeks an audience with the Federation ambassador to Qo’noS.”

“Baby sister!” Alexander swept past his servant and enveloped her in a hug. The old Klingon was too dignified to roll his eyes, but his expression looked rather pained. “You should have told me you were coming! What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at the Academy?”

“I’m on leave.”

“Well, it’s good to see you, anyway.”

“Can I stay here for a few days?”

“Of course.” He examined her for a few seconds, as if debating whether to ask her what was wrong. To her relief, he decided against it. That was one thing she liked about Alexander - he didn’t pry. That was probably why she told him the whole story the following evening, while they were sitting outside watching the sun set over Kang’s Summit and sipping bloodwine spritzers. (Alexander found straight bloodwine unpalatable, and had invented this pleasant little cocktail a few years ago. Naturally, their father found this bastardization of Klingon tradition offensive on principal, and was more than a little put out when Martok introduced it to the rest of the High Council.)

He was a good listener, too.

“I can see why you wanted to come here,” he said, when she’d finished. “You’ve never failed at anything before, so you wanted to get some advice from the family screw-up on how to handle it.”

Alexander’s penchant for humor at his own expense always bothered her, a little. She suspected he believed too much of it. “You’re not a screw-up.”

“I doubt our father would agree with you.”

“Our father sometimes forgets that the ability to wave a bat’leth around isn’t the only measure of success.”

“I can wave a bat’leth around just fine,” said Alexander. “It’s hitting the other guy with it that I have a problem with.”

“Physically or morally?”

“Maybe a little of both.”

When she was little, she’d sometimes wondered why Alexander didn’t come live with them on the _USS Boas_. She thought it must be because they had different mothers. Her human grandparents had read old Terran fairy tales to her, and they were full of wicked stepmothers. Perhaps Alexander, who was part human, merely assumed that her mother wouldn’t want him there. By the time they’d transfered over to the _Endeavor_ , she realized that Alexander’s more-or-less consistent presence in her life had more to do with her mother’s influence than their father’s paternal instincts. It wasn’t exactly that Father had written off his eldest son as a failure; he seemed to regard Alexander as a sign of his _own_ failure, and having him around served as a constant reminder of his own shortcomings.

Azetbur’s stomach churned at the thought of her own recent string of missed assignments and flunked exams.

“Is that why you left the Imperial Defense Force?”

“I joined for the wrong reasons. I thought I had something to prove,” he said. “But I never wanted to be a warrior. I didn’t enjoy being a warrior, and in order to be a _good_ Klingon warrior, you have to enjoy it, or you end up dead. I decided that I didn’t actually want to die failing to prove a point.”

“I don’t want to die, period,” said Azetbur, quietly.

“How very un-Klingon of you.”

“Starfleet is dangerous. It never bothered me before, because I thought I was going to be joined. Even if I died, it wouldn’t matter, because I wouldn’t really be dead.”

“So are you saying that now you’re afraid of being in Starfleet?”

“Not exactly. I’m afraid I’ll… freeze. I’m afraid I won’t be able to take necessary risks.”

Her brother let out a short bark of laughter before he could stop himself. “Sorry, Az, but coming from _you_ …”

She glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I used to be _terrified_ whenever Father and Jadzia left you alone with me. You were always finding new ways to get into trouble. I’d turn around for a second, and you’d be halfway up a tree, or following a mother targ into her cave so that you could see her piglets, or trying to wield a bat’leth a foot taller than you. You’ve always been too brave for your own damn good, baby sister. Somehow I doubt you’re going to stop taking risks just because you’ve suddenly discovered your own mortality. Though maybe you could do us all a favor, and stop taking such _stupid_ risks. Ow, hey, that hurt!”

She hadn’t elbowed him _that_ hard. “ _Ghu_. I wasn’t that bad.”

“No, _now_ you’re that bad. _Then_ you were worse.” He dodged the elbow this time, and threw an arm around her shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze.

She leaned against him. “Thanks for looking after me.”

“You hardly ever needed to be rescued, you know. You were almost as good at getting yourself out of trouble as you were at getting into it.”

“I had to rescue you a few times, as I recall.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“I don’t need to. Mother will be happy to, the next time you see her. She _loves_ telling that story about you and the grishnar cat. She’s gotten better at the impressions since you heard it last.”

Alexander groaned in a way that suggested he was rethinking his previously benevolent attitude towards stepmothers.

* * *

“Defend yourself!”

Azetbur deflected Father’s blow. Her five-year-old heart swelled with pride as she spun her own bat’leththrough the air - for about 10 seconds before she was summarily knocked to the ground.

“What did you do wrong?” asked Father.

“I wasn’t fast enough,” said Azetbur.

“You were showing off,” said Mother. “Don’t swing it around like that except to build momentum. You leave yourself too open.”

“Shouldn’t he go a little easier on her, Old Man?” asked Benjamin.

“That’s not the Klingon way. Besides, it’s a holodeck, she’s not going to get hurt.”

“I can hardly believe she’s the same age as Kandace. She looks closer to eight or nine.”

“A full Klingon would be hitting puberty by now.”

“I think we’re distracting her,” said Benjamin.

“I’m not distracted!”

“A Klingon warrior must learn to ignore distractions during battle,” said Father.

Azetbur was losing some of her enthusiasm for this exercise after the 4th or 5th time she picked herself up off the floor. “Rest now,” said Father. “We will begin mek’leth forms in a few minutes.”

“Does that mean it’s my turn?” said Mother, who was already retrieving a bat’lethfrom the rack.

“I hope he goes easy on _you_ at least,” said Benjamin, eying her mother’s swollen stomach.

“A little exercise won’t hurt either of us. Emony was still doing backflips a month before she gave birth.”

“No backflips,” said Father, sternly.

“Yes, sir,” said Mother, with a mock salute. “Now defend _your_ self.”

Azetbur took a seat next to Benjamin, who put a hand on her slumped shoulder. “You did well, Azzy.”

“Not well enough,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on her parents’ sparring match.

Once Azetbur had started her lesson in mek’leth, Benjamin asked her mother, “Did you have much interest in martial arts before you were joined?”

“Martial arts, yes, just not Klingon ones. Jadzia was far more athletic before she was joined than Curzon was. Frankly, he wasn’t much for exercise of any kind. But it’s hard to maintain a sedentary existence once you remember being an Olympic gymnast.”

“Were you any good?”

“My parents probably still have the trophies somewhere. I used to be very competitive.”

“Used to?” said Benjamin. Azetbur wasn’t looking in their direction, but she could almost hear him raising his eyebrow.

“I hardly enjoyed it at all,” said Mother, ignoring him. “But the Symbiosis Commission only accepts the best of the best, so I was determined to be the best at everything I did. This is far more fun.”

Azetbur was still mulling over the bat’leth match after bedtime that night. She didn’t even want to be a warrior, really, but she hated feeling like she hadn’t lived up to her full potential.

“Computer, what time is it?”

“The time is 23:42.”

“Are my parents asleep?”

“Negative.”

“Are my parents in their bedroom?”

“Affirmative.”

Azetbur dressed quickly and made her way out of their quarters in the dark. Most people in the corridors at this time were off-duty beta shift or on-duty gamma shift, so they wouldn’t be in a position to casually mention to her parents that they had seen her tomorrow morning. (She tried not to walk too fast or too furtively, so that everyone would assume that she was authorized to be out and about. It had always worked, so far.) She made her way to the closest unoccupied holodeck.

“Computer, Azetbur Mok’baraprogram, level 1.”

It took her 13 minutes to work her way up to level 2, a full 4 minutes shorter than her previous attempt. By the end of level 2, she was surrounded by the bodies of her holographic opponents, and feeling considerably more pleased with herself. Of course, none of them possessed the same level of skill as her father, but she wasn’t expecting to overtake _him_ for another fifteen years at least. The Dax symbiont’s contribution made her mother more difficult to gauge, but Azetbur was tentatively predicting that with sufficient training she could defeat her in around 12 years.

She thought about what her mother had said about the Symbiosis Commission: they only gave symbionts to the best of the best. There was no better proof of accomplishment that she knew of. And then you had _lifetimes_ to develop your skills, as many of them as you liked.

Maybe _she_ should have a symbiont.

* * *

Azetbur was out practicing mek’leth forms on the summit when she saw the shuttlecraft descending. She couldn’t read the name, but she recognized a Starfleet shuttle when she saw one, and she knew before she made it back to the ambassadorial residence that this wasn’t a diplomatic visitor. Not professionally speaking, anyway.

As she reached for the door, she could already hear childish shouting echoing around the cavernous entrance hall. She took a deep breath to steal herself for the onslaught, and went inside to greet her family. The onslaught turned out to be more literal than she anticipated, as something running at high speed immediately careened into her.

“Watch where you’re going, _petaQ_.”

“Sorry, Az,” said Kor, grinning toothily up at her.

“Don’t call your brother a _petaQ_ ,” said their mother automatically. “Not unless he really deserves it.”

Inevitably, Mogh chimed in with, “He always deserves it!” Then they were off, rolling around on the ground like saber bear cubs, snarling just as gleefully. Azetbur and her parents paid them no mind while they greeted each other, although Alexander was hovering near them apprehensively. He was in danger of falling into the fray, but Azetbur was too distracted to rescue him this time. Mogh and Kor couldn’t get away with this kind of thing on the ship outside of the holodeck, of course. But the rules were different on Qo’noS.

“I thought you were supposed to be in the Tholian sector?”

“We had to put in for repairs at Starbase 234. I thought my Chief Tactical Officer could use some shore leave.”

“What happened?”

Father looked slightly uncomfortable. “We had a minor diplomatic misunderstanding with the Tzenkethi delegation.”

“ _You_ had a minor diplomatic misunderstanding, and now _I_ have twelve decks with fractured hull plating and a malfunctioning emitter array.”

“So you’re being punished with vacation?”

“It was that or an official reprimand,” said Mother. Father just scowled.

Neither of them seemed surprised to see her there. Nor had they asked her why she wasn’t at the Academy.

For once she was grateful for her little brothers’ dreadful table manners and incessant arguing. She escaped back to her room as soon as dinner was over, hoping that she’d at least get until morning to get her thoughts straight.

Alas, no such luck.

“Azzy, may I come in?”

Azetbur restrained herself from screaming into her pillow. “Okay.”

“Julian told me about your SRT results,” said Mother, without preamble.

Azetbur sat up on the bed to face her. “So much for doctor-patient confidentiality. How did you know where I was?”

“I have my methods.”

“Galen ratted me out.”

“I suppose you won’t believe me if I say I tracked you down through some kind of maternal psychic resonance.”

“Well, you are a Starfleet captain, so I guess it’s not totally outside the realm of possibility.”

“Don’t be too hard on him. He was worried about you.”

 _MaghwI’_. She couldn’t hold it against him, really, but she was so sick of people _worrying_ about her.

“You knew it was going to fail, didn’t you?”

Her mother sat down on the bed beside her. “I thought it would _probably_ fail. Even if you had favorable results, the Symbiosis Commission would have considered it too much of a risk.”

“You could have said something. At least Julian tried to warn me.”

Mother raised an eyebrow. “Would you have listened?”

“Probably not.”

“You’ve never been very good at taking no for an answer. That’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes, people only think something is impossible because no one’s done it yet, and some rules _should_ be broken.”

“How do I know which ones? How do I know if something’s worth trying?”

“That’s the hard part. You have to learn to weigh the consequences. Is success worth it? Is trying and failing worse than never trying at all? Either way you have to learn to live with the choices you make. It’s never easy.”

“Not if you only have one lifetime, anyway.”

“It’s _never_ easy. Experience doesn’t always help. It’s not always easy living with eight lifetimes worth of mistakes.”

“I never thought of it like that.”

“Six of my hosts have been parents, and I still don’t know if I’m giving you the right advice. Tobin would have tried to talk you out of the SRT because he was always a bit paranoid about medical procedures. Audrid would have gone behind your back and tried to bully Dr. Jian out of performing it altogether. There’s a reason her son stopped speaking to her.” Mother’s tone was wry, but her eyes held a lingering sadness. “Jadzia thinks that children need to learn to make their own decisions, and their own mistakes. But if you do get _hurt_ because of that, then that’s another thing my next host will have to learn to live with.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to tell me whether Jadzia thinks I should go back to the Academy?”

“If you’re _really_ only there because you thought a Starfleet commission would look good on your application to the Initiate program, then you don’t have much reason to stay.”

“Is that why you think I joined?”

“No, Az, I don’t,” said her mother. “I don’t think you’re that shortsighted. For better or worse, you were raised in Starfleet, by Starfleet officers. You know exactly what sort of life you’re choosing. You don’t need a symbiont to be an exceptional Starfleet officer - you’ll do that just by being you.”

* * *

Azetbur and her father borrowed a shuttle from Alexander for the journey back to Earth.

“How do you know how to fly a Klingon shuttlecraft?” asked Father, when she volunteered herself as pilot.

“It’s pretty similar to Martok’s old _d'k tahg_ -class raider, and I’ve been flying one of those since I was 10.”

“I assume Martok is aware of this?”

“He taught me.”

That was the extent of their conversation for the next few hours. Azetbur wasn’t sure what to make of her father’s silence. Oh, it was perfectly normal for him to avoid extraneous chatter as a general rule, but usually she found his silences easier to classify into types. There was the ‘small-talk black hole’ silence, the ‘contemplative’ silence, the ‘preparing for battle’ silence, the ‘angry’ silence, the ‘annoyed’ silence, the ‘annoyed at Mother specifically’ silence - his moods were very articulate, whether or not words were involved. This seemed like a ‘brooding’ silence, which meant he was probably brooding about her.

Finally, Azetbur said, “I suppose Mother told you about the synaptic realignment therapy.”

Father nodded. “Yes. But she did not tell me why it failed.”

“My physiology is stubbornly resistant to change.”

“Is it because you’re half-Klingon?” he asked.

Azetbur sighed inwardly. Of course, he would think this was about him. “It’s possible, I guess. Who knows?”

“K’Ehleyr sometimes resented her Klingon side.”

The brooding was worse than she thought, if he was bringing up _K’Ehleyr_ , of all people.

“I don’t resent being Klingon,” said Azetbur. “Lots of Trill aren’t physically compatible with symbionts. It’s just genetic bad luck, that’s all. And even if being part Klingon was the deciding factor, I _still_ wouldn’t resent it.”

This seemed to cheer him up, though it was difficult to tell from his expression. “I’m sorry that you will not be joined with a symbiont. I know it was important to you.”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” said Azetbur. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought over the past few days, and I’m not sure I ever wanted it for the right reasons.”

She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask her to. “I am also glad that you have decided to resume your studies.”

Azetbur realized that she was glad, as well. The Symbiosis Commission was no longer hanging over her head, waiting to decide her fate. It was… freeing. She hadn’t anticipated that. Her future would have a different shape to it than what she had imagined, but maybe she hadn’t lost anything after all.


	3. Brains in Your Head and Feet in Your Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Quark shook his head. “I don’t get the appeal.”_
> 
> _“It’s just so bubbly,” said Meru. “It feels really nice to be full of bubbles.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried a number of gender neutral/non-binary pronouns before settling on the ones used here, which are sort of a hybrid of several variants. On that note, there are two instances of misgendering in this (both brief and quickly corrected).

_You have brains in your head._   
_You have feet in your shoes._   
_You can steer yourself_   
_any direction you choose._   
_You're on your own. And you know what you know._   
_And_ YOU _are the guy who'll decide where to go._   
-Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

* * *

Meru’s shuttle back to Earth was delayed due to a minor mechanical malfunction. Ze suspected it was an issue with the plasma injectors, but the captain had not appreciated this suggestion, and had also refused zir offer to assist with the repairs. Meru thought that ze must have offended the man’s ego in some way, though ze did not understand how; ze had only been trying to help. Quark’s was as good a place as any to wait, so ze wandered over and took a seat next to Morn at the bar.

“No loitering,” said Quark, which was his favorite greeting for zem and zir siblings. Since they didn’t need to consume food and couldn’t get drunk, their presence at the bar was automatically classed as loitering, although Quark had never made good on his repeated threats to ban any or all of them. (Akrem _had_ been banned from the dom-jot tables by both Quark and Nerys - in a rare show of unity - after one afternoon spent as a dom-jot ball resulted in three drunken brawls.) “Aren’t you supposed to be on your way back to the Academy?”

“My shuttle was delayed,” said Meru. Ze raised a facsimile of an eyebrow that had taken years to perfect. “Babysitting, Quark?”

Quark appeared to be wearing an iridescent gold necklace, though it curled around his finger when he nudged it. “She won’t leave me alone.”

“Lupaza likes you.” Lupaza was the newest member of the Little Link, found a few months ago in the Orellius system. Quark had been the one to track zem down. In keeping with Rule of Acquisition #7, he always kept his ears open for news of potential Changelings, allegedly for the sake of keeping Odo in his debt. “And ze’s not a she unless ze decides to be.”

“Lupaza’s a girl’s name.”

“So’s Meru,” said Meru.

“Yeah, but you don’t look like a girl,” said Quark, dismissively, as Lupaza slid down his jacket and onto the bar.

“Lupaza currently looks like a cup,” Meru pointed out.

Quark eyed the newly formed empty glass with suspicion. “I’m not giving you any free drinks,” he said. “You spilled the last one.”

Meru touched the side of the glass, which shimmered for a moment. “Lupaza would like some root beer. You can put it on my tab.”

“I’m charging you a cleaning fee if she - fine, _ze_ \- gets bored with that shape and I end up with a sticky puddle on my counter.” But he took out a bottle and poured out half a liter into the Lupaza-glass. They both watched as the glass turned momentarily yellow with happiness. (Before Meru learned how to communicate with humanoids verbally, ze learned to communicate zir moods by changing color. Now all the younger Changelings seemed to go through this phase.) Quark shook his head. “I don’t get the appeal.”

“It’s just so bubbly,” said Meru. “It feels really nice to be full of bubbles.”

Meru had once turned into a bathtub for a friend at the Academy who lamented that the dormitory only had sonic showers. The sensation of being filled with hot water and bubbles and 50 kg of contented human was even more interesting than the sex they’d had afterword, although in retrospect ze probably should not have made that particular observation out loud. While ze sometimes envied those humanoid senses ze had trouble reproducing, like taste and smell, ze had yet to come across a humanoid species whose sense of touch was more sophisticated than a Changeling’s.

“Sounds more like indigestion to me.”

Quark went to find a bottle of Aldebaran whiskey to top off Morn’s tumbler, but as soon as he picked it up, the bottle transformed into a Tarkalean hawk and flew off to perch on the railing of the second level.

Quark swore under his breath, sounding more resigned than angry. “I think Odo puts them up to it.”

That wasn’t precisely true, but Odo’s emotions were often a dominant presence within the Link, and sometimes they couldn’t help wanting to annoy Quark. The younger Changelings did not always exhibit appropriate self-control in this regard.

The Lupaza-glass started to vibrate, and Meru quickly picked it up and turned to Morn. “Do you like root beer?”

The Lurian nodded, and Meru handed him the glass. He chugged the drink down in two swallows, then tossed it in the air, and it flew off to join the other hawk on the second level.

“I still can’t believe Starfleet doesn’t mind this place turning into _Odo’s Sanctuary for Stray Changelings_ ,” said Quark. “And speaking of Starfleet, I’ve heard a rumor that might be worth something to you.”

“‘Never trust a rumor you didn’t invent yourself.’ Rule of Acquisition number 142.”

“This one comes directly from the source,” said Quark. “Apparently those morons at Starfleet headquarters are giving that idiot nephew of mine a brand new ship.”

Meru considered pointing out that Quark’s ‘idiot nephew’ had been awarded the Christopher Pike Medal of Valor last month, then decided it probably wasn’t worth it. “Do you know which ship?” ze asked. Ze had spent zir sophomore year field studies at the Antares Ship Yards, and several of the ships ze had worked on would be nearing completion by now.

“The _Hatchepsut_. Khonsu class. They’re sending it on a five year mission to explore the Delta Quadrant next year. My poor brother will be beside himself,” said Quark. “ _And_ so will Odo and Kira.”

Meru tilted zir head to one side. “You think I’m going to be assigned to it?”

“I _know_ you are. Nog said he’s already filed the paperwork so he can snag you before someone else does. All you have to do is graduate.”

Meru turned momentarily yellow zemself at that, before trepidation hit zem with the force of a Tellarite cudgel. _Five years_ in the Delta Quadrant. Ze had never been away from the Link for more than a few months, let alone so far away. Just thinking about it made zem feel completely and utterly alone.

* * *

The Founders had turned Odo into a ‘solid’ (as they put it) a few months before Meru was found and brought out of stasis, so zir earliest memories were of trying to find ways of communicating with humanoids. Ze recognized that there was something that distinguished Odo from the others, something that made him more like _zem_. It was as if there should have been a connection between them, but that connection had somehow been severed. The desire to rebuild it had been less conscious thought than physical reflex.

Meru had never been able to answer to zir own satisfaction how ze managed to turn Odo back into a Changeling. Ze still had only a rudimentary understanding of what ze was, and what humanoids were, and a vague instinctive impression that Odo was somewhere in-between, and that this in-betweenness was _wrong_ somehow. Odo needed to be _fixed_. Meru was an engineer, and knew very well that you couldn’t fix anything with ‘a hope and a prayer’ (as ze once heard Miles put it). You needed to understand how something worked in order to repair it. And yet, it seemed as if Meru’s need to link with another of zir species was so profound it had transformed Odo back into his natural state without Meru even realizing what ze was trying to do. None of zir extensive study of exobiology at the Academy had supplied zem with a satisfactory answer, or even a testable hypothesis.

However ze had managed it, the transformation affected not only Odo, but zir entire _world_. Ze still couldn’t comprehend much of what Odo shared with zem, but ze could finally make some sense of who and what they were, and form a clearer impression of the people around them. They were all separate and distinct from one another (this had not been entirely clear to zem before); they all provoked different emotions in Odo. They all had names; Odo had a name; _ze_ had a name: Meru. Ze had, for lack of a better word, ‘heard’ it before, but had not made the connection between ‘Meru’ and zemself, anymore than ze had made the connection between ‘Odo’ and the being ze knew wasn’t like the others. And then there was Nerys, who Odo loved, and Meru loved vicariously.

When the Dominion took over Deep Space 9, Meru was too young to really comprehend what was going on. All ze understood was that Odo and Nerys had sent zem away on the Defiant while they stayed behind. Ze spent the first few hours of that tense, somber escape coiled tightly around Captain Sisko’s wrist. This was a comforting position, so Meru let zemself expand, creeping further and further up the captain’s arm.

“Meru,” said Sisko, when Meru reached his elbow, “I know you’re frightened, but you’re also cutting off my circulation.”

The words meant little to zem, but ze sensed his discomfort, and perceived it in his tone, and loosened zir grip.

“Why don’t you go with Nog and help Chief O’Brien in engineering?”

Meru disliked the idea of leaving the safety of Sisko’s arm, and slid away from Nog’s outstretched hand. “It’s okay, Meru,” said Nog softly, holding his palm out, but not quite touching zem.

“Go on,” said Sisko. “You know Nog. He’ll look after you.” Reluctantly, Meru transfered zemself from Sisko’s wrist to Nog’s.

“I see we have a visitor,” said Chief O’Brien, when they entered engineering.

“The captain wants me to keep zem occupied for a while. Any ideas?”

“You could inventory that toolkit.”

Nog sighed. “Yes, Chief.” He sat down on the floor in an out-of-the-way corner, opened the toolbox, and began laying out tools on the ground. Intrigued, Meru uncoiled zemself from his arm and poured into the toolbox, squaring zir edges so that ze fit just right. Nog chuckled. “I know you can fit inside the toolbox, but can you _be_ the toolbox?”

Meru bounced out of the box and reformed next to it. No one would have mistaken zem for the real thing (the real thing wasn’t lemon yellow, for a start), but it was a serviceable approximation.

“Oh no!” said Nog, dramatically. “Now I don’t know which box to put the tools in!”

The Meru-box glowed like a small sun.

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” said Nog, “since they’re both such good boxes!”

Boxes can’t preen, but this one still managed it. Nog began placing the tools carefully into the Meru-box, one at a time, naming each one as he went. “This is a coil spanner, and this is a phase coil resonater…”

When he was done, he closed Meru’s lid. “I’ll give you a test on that later.”

Meru shook with glee. Then, without warning, ze sprouted a hundred tiny millipede legs and skittered away, tools rattling around inside zem, all different shapes, sizes and textures, a feast of new sensations.

Nog sprang up with a gasp. “Uh, Chief?”

O’Brien knelt down before the console Meru was hiding under, hording zir collection of toys. “Now, where could Meru be? If ze doesn’t come out, ze won’t be able to help you adjust the sonic shower relays. You’ll need a good, strong decoupler for that.”

Meru barreled out from under the console, scattering tools across the floor as ze shrank down into a decoupler. Even a Starfleet engineer wouldn’t have noticed the difference.

“Will this do, Chief?” asked Nog, picking Meru up.

“Perfect,” said O’Brien, and Meru rather spoiled the effect by turning yellow again. “Go see to those sonic showers, Cadet.”

They did just that, leaving the chief to clean up the discarded tools.

* * *

A week after zir return to the Academy, Meru found zemself sitting on a dormroom floor with the lights dimmed, while T’Lar lit a Vulcan meditation lamp.

“Do you really need all this ceremony?” asked Azetbur, who sat cross-legged on her own bed, watching them.

“I like rituals. My people don’t seem to have any,” said Meru.

“The ritual elements help focus the mind, but they are not strictly necessary.” T’Lar raised an eyebrow. “Nor is the presence of an audience.”

“We’re just here to make sure you don’t fry your brains,” said Galen. He was sitting on T’Lar’s bed, somewhere he had been spending rather a lot of time of late, judging by Azetbur’s frequent complaints on the subject. (Azetbur herself had taken to borrowing Meru’s bed with increasing regularity, since Meru didn’t need to use it for its intended purpose - it made little difference to zir comfort whether ze reverted to a gelatinous state on a pillow, on the floor, or in an empty bucket.)

“I don’t technically have a brain,” Meru pointed out. “Will that be a problem?”

“That is difficult to say,” said T’Lar. “Mind-melds have been successfully performed on non-humanoid species. Ambassador Spock was able to use a mind-meld to establish first contact with a member of the Horta, and the structure of their nervous system differs markedly from any humanoid’s.”

“Changeling linking bears some resemblance to touch-telepathy in other species,” said Meru.

“It should, theoretically, be possible. However, it may be beyond my level of skill. My own perceptions are not as intrinsically sensitive as a Vulcan’s would be.” T’Lar was a Romulan, but she had been born in Georgia, part of the small community of exiled followers of Ambassador Spock. She spoke with a charmingly incongruous Southern American drawl. (Meru found humanoid voices much easier to imitate than humanoid faces, and had made a study of accents.)

When T’Lar’s hand came in contact with Meru’s temple, ze immediately sensed a kind of psychic vibration emanating from her fingers. But as soon as T’Lar spoke the traditional invocation - “My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts” - Meru reeled as if T’Lar’s mind was an invading force instead of an invited guest.

T’Lar withdrew her hand. “You’re resisting.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to. Try again.”

The second attempt was no more successful than the first. Meru couldn’t seem to throw off that instinctive revulsion that seized zem when ze sensed the presence of T’Lar’s mind. The shape of it was _wrong_ , disembodied in a way that was unfamiliar and disconcerting. The Link was as physical as it was telepathic, and in the absence of that physicality, the sharing of thoughts felt obscene. How perfectly absurd. Ze wondered if there wasn’t something else behind it, as well. The Founders despised other species. Perhaps this was another example of their prowess for biological programming. It was an alarming thought.

“I’m not sure being in humanoid form is helping,” said Meru.

T’Lar agreed with the logic of this, so Meru let zemself melt back into a liquid state. From here, T’Lar’s fingers seemed less a threat than a curiosity, and Meru drew them in and surrounded them as T’Lar said the words again. “My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts.”

T’Lar’s mind was _beautiful_ , a kaleidoscope of vibrant colors in geometric harmony, ever-shifting, but always maintaining a perfect symmetry. T’Lar’s mind was _repugnant_ , alien, a chaos beyond all hope of order. T’Lar could also feel these two perceptions, diametrically opposed, and Meru’s shame over the latter was almost too much to bear. But then, zir revulsion took shape: it became a stone, hard and black and sharper than obsidian. One stone, lying amidst hundreds of stones, the darkest and ugliest of them all. As Meru watched, T’Lar picked it up, and in her hands it looked smaller and duller. _This is not who you are_ , she said, and tossed the stone into the sea. Meru’s sense of violation sank away with it, down into some dark pit of zir subconscious.

When their minds separated, T’Lar was breathing heavily, beads of sweat shining on her face, up to her elbows in Meru’s gelatinous matrix. With some effort, Meru slid onto the floor and coalesced back into humanoid form.

“Fascinating,” said T’Lar. “I thank you for the experience.”

“Fascinating,” echoed Meru. Ze wondered if this was what it was like to feel winded.

“Are you guys alright?” asked Azetbur.

“Yes. Fine. That was… amazing,” said Meru, regretting the inadequacy of the words, but finding it difficult to describe zir current condition. Buzzing with an ineffable exhilaration. In awe. Like ze could understand what it was to _be_ humanoid, a conundrum ze had been grappling with ever since ze first took humanoid form. (Professor Chakotay had tried to talk zem into switching their specialization to xenoanthropology. He said that ze offered the most unique perspective on humanoid cultures he had ever encountered.)

“Would you like to make another attempt?” asked T’Lar.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” said Galen.

“I observe no obverse effects,” said T’Lar.

“Nor do I,” said Meru. Ze looked from Galen’s concerned frown to Azetbur’s raised eyebrows, and was struck with inspiration. “I think you could join us. Both of you.”

“Really? How?” said Azetbur, intrigued.

“It wouldn’t work. Not for me, anyway. Cardassians are practically psy-negative.”

“You are half Romulan,” said T’Lar. “Have you ever been tested?”

“No.”

“I’m at 189 on the Esper Scale,” volunteered Azetbur. Sufficient psionic energy was one of the qualifications for joining. A rating of less than 150 would have disqualified her even before the low isoboramine levels did. The Esper test was designed for humanoid brains, so Meru had never taken it zemself.

“Odo once formed a telepathic link with three humanoids on accident after their runabout was hit by a plasma storm. Including your yadik and your mother.”

Galen frowned. “I’ve never heard that story. What happened?”

“They were temporarily trapped in a dream-vision of Odo’s past on Terok Nor.” It occurred to Meru that this would not assuage Galen’s natural paranoia. “But Odo had been turned into a humanoid by the Founders, at the time. The plasma storm activated his residual morphogenic enzymes, so he couldn’t properly control the situation. This would be different.”

“Besides,” said Azetbur, “they obviously survived with no ill-effects.”

Galen still looked dubious.

“Don’t you remember the conversation we had with Julian and Jadzia the night before we left for the Academy?”

“I’ve been trying to block it out, but it still haunts my nightmares.”

“They decided we needed a lecture on safe sex,” Azetbur explained to T’Lar. “With their respective scientific backgrounds, they were _very_ thorough. But Galen’s only squeamish about it because after they got halfway through a bottle of Saurian brandy they started including personal anecdotes, and between them they’ve apparently slept with half the species in the quadrant.”

“I don’t see why _I_ needed to know that the secretions of female reptilian Xindi can send human males into anaphylactic shock.”

Meru had found the conversation enlightening, although most of the information about prophylactics didn’t apply to zem. (For Meru, Julian had just advised caution about contact with Bolian bodily fluids, which he said was usually sound advice for anyone who wasn’t Bolian.) Humanoid attitudes towards sex were fascinating and perplexing. Most sexually reproducing species were preoccupied with the subject to varying degrees, which at least made sense from an evolutionary perspective. But they also approached it with a dizzying array of peculiar taboos, and many found explicit discussion of it embarrassing. Even Odo was often evasive on the subject, especially when it came to his own experience (it was one of the few things that he blocked from them in the Link).

“They were both still relatively sober when they addressed telepathic encounters. Julian said that Vulcan techniques were among the safest for other species.”

“I’m in,” said Azetbur. “Galen?”

“Death by psychically induced cerebral hemorrhage doesn’t sound very _honorable_ to me,” muttered Galen.

“If it makes you uncomfortable—” started Meru, and Galen flushed with verdigris.

“Most new experiences make me uncomfortable,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try.”

Galen and Azetbur joined T’Lar and Meru on the floor. After some discussion of the procedure with T’Lar, Meru melted into a pool between the others, who each dipped their hands into zem. It tickled.

“My mind to y’all’s minds, my thoughts to y’all’s thoughts.”

The sense of violation was still there, but muted, and more easily suppressed. The new presences in Meru’s mind carried a deeper familiarity than T’Lar’s did. Ze had known Azetbur and Galen for nearly twenty years and felt the weight of it now in zir very soul (if such a thing existed).

“I have not seen this place before,” said T’Lar. “But I know it.”

“We’re on the Promenade, on _Deep Space 9_ ,” said one of them, or all of them. They were on the upper level, watching people below whiz by at incomprehensible speeds. No, not people, _thoughts_. Their thoughts, a rainbow of color and light, swirling together, both intermingled and distinct.

_You are not alone,_ said three voices in unison. Or was it four? _You are not alone_.

Home, Odo, the Little Link - they were 67.2 light years away, and for the first time, Meru did not feel alone without them.

* * *

When Bajor joined the Federation, shortly after the Dominion War, the Bajoran militia had been absorbed by Starfleet and Nerys had gone from Colonel to Commander. Odo had declined his own commission and taken up private investigation, which gave him the flexibility to follow leads on other Changelings in the Alpha Quadrant. Meru sometimes suspected that his main objection to joining Starfleet was the added paperwork. Meru got zir first taste of it filling out the application to Starfleet Academy, which proved to be nearly as challenging as the entrance exam.

“For ‘date of birth’ should I put unknown? Or the day I was found? What do the guidelines say?”

Nerys skimmed the contents of the PADD on her desk. “ _If you were not ‘born’ or if ‘birth’ is not considered the beginning of individual life for your species and/or culture, please enter the date at which you gained conscious awareness of the world (e.g. date of hatching, date of manufacture, date of awakening, etc.). If further elaboration is necessary, please fill out the appropriate section in Form 8A._ I think the day you were found should suffice.”

“Am I considered an adult by the standards of my species and/or culture?”

“I’m not sure. That’s a question for Odo.”

That one also referred to Form 8A. Meru had a feeling ze was going to be spending a lot of time on Form 8A. Moving on, ze checked ‘none’ for both sex and gender, and then came to the section that asked for the names of zir ‘parents, progenitors, or legal guardians.’

“Is that another one I need Form 8A for?”

“Actually,” said Nerys, “you only need to list me for that one. Under Bajoran law, I’m your only legal guardian.”

“Really? But I never knew.”

Nerys looked a little uncomfortable. “It was just a formality. I guess it hasn’t really come up before. Odo was concerned that Starfleet would eventually decide they wanted to monitor your development more closely and you’d end up in a lab somewhere. He didn’t have much faith in maintaining his own legal status at that point, so we decided that I would adopt you under the foundling law. That way, the Federation would have to respect your Bajoran citizenship.”

“Does that mean I should put ‘Kira’ under ‘family or surname’?

“Yes. But if you prefer to just go by Meru, you can note that on Form 8B.”

“What if I wanted to go by Kira? Would you mind?”

“Legally, it is your name. I wouldn’t have given it to you if I minded,” said Nerys, smiling. “Odo prefers having just one name; I suppose it didn’t occur to him that you might want two.”

No, ze supposed it wouldn’t. By Bajoran tradition he would take the name Kira if he and Nerys ever got married, but Meru thought that was unlikely (Odo didn’t put much stock in humanoid legal institutions and Nerys always said that she didn’t need a ceremony to confirm what was in her heart). Taking a Bajoran family name on his own would have struck Odo as farcical. He wouldn’t have accepted the name Mora even if Dr. Mora had offered it to him, and Dr. Mora was the closest thing Odo had to a parent.

Changelings didn’t have parents in the traditional sense (either biologically or socially). Infants were formed in the Great Link, by the Great Link, through a complex process of genetic recombination. This served the same purpose as sexual reproduction in other species, diversifying each individual genome into a unique code. According to Odo, the Founders could consciously manipulate the process to weed out any deleterious mutations and even add some artificial modifications. From a humanoid perspective it all sounded a bit incestuous, though in fact any two Changelings were more genetically different from one another than any two humanoids of the same species. But it would not be entirely inaccurate to say that they were all _family_.

Meru, who had been raised around humanoids and absorbed more than a few humanoid ideas, tended to think of the Little Link on DS9 as zir immediate family and the Founders as more distant relatives (of the sort who didn’t get invited to holiday dinners, or wouldn’t if any of them needed to consume food). Zir humanoid friends often referred to Odo as zir father, which was true enough in terms of zir socialization in the humanoid world. (Or would it be more accurate to say he was zir older brother?) When they were in the Link, ze didn’t think of him that way; he was a part of zem, and ze of him, and concepts like ‘parent’ and ‘child’ were simply not relevant to them.

Then there was Kira Nerys, who could never be part of the Link, but was family nonetheless. Quark occasionally referred to her as Meru’s ‘stepmother,’ which was stretching it slightly even in humanoid terms. Now it turned out that as far as Federation law was concerned, Nerys was zir mother, for all intents and purposes. That wasn’t entirely accurate, but it didn’t feel wrong, either. Ze had always lived in two worlds, and if Nerys was zir mother in one of them, perhaps that was _right_ after all.

* * *

“Why do I always get nominated to be Starfleet’s official Garak-wrangler whenever the Federation tries to negotiate a new treaty with Cardassia?” grumbled Nerys. They were picnicing in a small park across from a row of painted ladies, their Victorian cornices highlighted with vibrant hues: pink, blue, yellow, lavender. The sky above was gray and overcast; it usually was in San Francisco.

“Because Starfleet knows that Garak actually listens to you,” said Meru.

Nerys swallowed a bite of hasperat. “Garak _listens_ to everyone. Then finds ways to use everything he’s heard to his own advantage.”

“He respects you, though.”

Nerys’s expression softened, but she added, “That doesn’t mean he’s going to make my life any easier for the next month.”

“Is it really going to take that long?” asked Meru, frowning. “I thought Galen was exaggerating.” Between his penchant for sarcasm and hyperbole, it was never a good idea to take Galen too literally.

“He’s staying with the O’Briens, so at least I won’t be suffering alone. I think he accepted Keiko’s offer just to annoy Miles.”

“It is warmer in Davis than it is in San Francisco,” said Meru, reasonably. “And Garak and Miles always seem friendly enough to me.”

“They get along fine as long as they can both gang up on Julian,” said Nerys, with a snort. “Keiko wants both of us over for dinner on Friday, and she said you should invite Azetbur as well. Galen is going to be there whether he likes it or not.”

Meru thought he _would_ like it, though he might pretend he didn’t, in the same way that Miles and Garak, who both loved Julian fiercely, also mocked him mercilessly. These contradictions and pretenses seemed to be a common humanoid trait, and even Odo could be like that, in his own way. With Quark, for example, he always maintained a veneer of hostility and suspicion, but in the Link, ze could sense the softer emotions he kept tucked out of sight: fondness, amusement, affection, and even a peculiar sort of admiration (if you dug deep enough).

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Nog might be joining us, if he can escape from Admiral B’ker in time,” said Nerys. She paused. “You didn’t tell us you were going to be assigned to his new starship.” Nerys rarely aimed her formidable temper in Meru’s direction, but that tone of mildly chastising disappointment was far, far worse.

“I’m sorry. I should have known you’d find out anyway.”

Nerys took zir hand. “I’m very _proud_ of you. But I’m also concerned. It’s not like you to keep things from me.”

“It’s not _you_ I’m keeping things from,” said Meru. “Does Odo already know?”

“Did you really think Quark would keep his mouth shut?” asked Nerys, raising an eyebrow. “You should have told him yourself.”

“I know.” Meru started turning an unpleasant shade of violet, then caught zemself and forced zir manufactured skin and hair back to a neutral beige. “I just… didn’t want to have that conversation on subspace. Talking can be so… inadequate, sometimes.”

“Talking feels inadequate for us solids too, sometimes. Come here.” Meru melted into Nerys's embrace, and tried not to melt literally, too. “How do _you_ feel about this assignment?”

“Like it’s the best and _worst_ assignment Starfleet could give me.”

“And you didn’t want to tell Odo because you think he’s going to be upset by it.” _Upset_ : such a small, simple word. Perhaps if ze _could_ link with Nerys, ze could make her understand.

There was an ancient Earth legend about a seal who could transform into a human woman. One day, she lost her seal skin and found herself trapped upon the land. She fell in love with a fisherman and married him. They lived together for many years and had many children, but when the seal-woman found her skin again, “neither chains of steel nor chains of love could keep her from the sea.”

For Odo, the Great Link was the sea, and the Little Link was merely a lake. It sufficed, for now; but not forever. To take the analogy to its logical conclusion, Nerys could swim in the calm waters of the lake, but in the sea she would drown, and she could never learn to breathe underwater.

Meru feared the sea, and longed for it, and did not know if the longing was zir own or merely a shadow of Odo’s. The ocean was an unfathomable, unimaginable thing to one who had never experienced it, who had only glimpsed fragments of it in another’s memory. The land was vast and full of wonders, and ze wanted to explore it before ze returned to the sea. If ze ever returned to the sea, ze wanted it to be zir choice, not compelled by drives programed into zir genes or desires absorbed from someone else.

“He’ll come immediately if you ask him too. You’ll feel better about things after you link with him.”

“Maybe,” said Meru. “But I… I’m afraid that if I link with him, I won’t want this assignment at all anymore.”

“Odo would never try to override your autonomy,” said Nerys. Meru wasn’t sure autonomy was even a relevant concept for their species. “The Founder did that to him, once. He wouldn’t do it to you.”

It was more complicated than that, but ze had no idea how to explain it. In the Link, differentiating his emotions from zir emotions was like trying to separate grains of sand on a beach. The Founder turned to domination because she couldn’t achieve synchrony with him otherwise. Odo didn’t need to do that; disharmony was rare between them, and his emotions could inundate Meru’s without any deliberate intention on his part.

“ _She’s_ part of this too,” said Meru, after mulling it over. “I think I need to see her.”

There was another aspect of this that Nerys couldn’t see, but it would hurt her nonetheless. If Meru left, the Little Link would become littler still. Would any of the others want to follow zir example? How much smaller could their lake get, before the seal felt compelled to return to the sea?

* * *

All the great powers of the Alpha Quadrant had grievances against the Founders, but _this_ Founder surrendered herself to the United Federation of Planets as part of the treaty, and there she remained. The Klingons were happy enough with this arrangement, taking more satisfaction from their victory in battle than the negotiations in its aftermath. The Romulans grumbled, but it was mostly for show (they would have liked the opportunity to vivisect her, but recognized that their claim was relatively weak). Cardassia was another matter.

Many Cardassians called for her extradition, but they’d been too devastated to force the issue. Even so, only some very savvy political maneuvering (mostly by Minister Garak) prevented the riots from shredding the Union’s tattered remains beyond all hope of repair. Garak hadn’t enjoyed playing the voice of reason. Meru hadn’t been allowed to watch the trial, but ze’d overheard that much.

They’d been on Earth two years after the war, the Founder’s trial set to begin in a few days. Odo set Meru to distracting the children, though in hindsight it was clearly zem he wanted distracted. So, ze spent zir afternoons playing with Yoshi and Galen. At the time, ze found it especially pleasing to take the form of a sphere, so they mostly played a variety of ball games, Galen and Yoshi tossing Meru back and forth and bouncing zem across the O’Briens’ backyard. The two boys finally exhausted themselves and fell asleep on the couch, cuddled up together with Meru draped over them as a blanket.

Ze remembered Odo and Garak conversing in low voices nearby.

“Oh, believe me, Odo, no one would rather see her tried and publicly executed by the Ministry of Justice. But Federation ‘justice’ was the price for averting our annihilation. The death of one Founder is not worth the return of the Jem’Hadar.”

“I suppose you regret that Dr. Bashir prevented _our_ annihilation,” said Odo.

Odo and Garak were friends, of a sort, but it was a friendship fraught with complex feelings of the sort that Meru could sense but couldn’t quite grasp.

“My dear Constable,” said Garak, lips curling into his usual half-smile, “I think you’ll find that I am only concerned with what _is_ , not what _might_ have been.” The smile vanished. “Besides, with their masters gone, the Jem’Hadar would have rampaged across the Quadrant, and there would be no Cardassia left to participate in this farce.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation,” said Odo, an edge of hollow bitterness creeping into his voice, “she will find the isolation from _her_ people far worse than any torture _your_ people could have devised.”

* * *

The Founder languished in a high security bunker below Starfleet Headquarters in a specially designed cell, surrounded by layers of impenetrable forcefields. She received no visitors, save one: once a Bajoran year, Odo made his pilgrimage to Earth, alone, to spend a few hours with her. Starfleet allowed them to link; at her sentencing, Odo argued that to disallow it completely would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Starfleet always strove to be magnanimous in victory. Meru respected that, and would aspire to emulate it, should ze ever acquire any enemies.

In spite of the intense security around the facility, few security personnel guarded the cell, and they kept their contact with the prisoner minimal. In the early years of her incarceration, numerous attempts were made to engage with her: counselors, diplomats, xenoanthropologists. Starfleet believed solitary confinement should only be used as a last resort, and never long term, if it could possibly be avoided.

But the Founder refused to communicate with anyone but Odo, and eventually even Starfleet stopped trying to reach her.

“I still think this is a bad idea,” said Nerys.

Meru didn’t respond. Nerys must have known of the inevitability of this meeting. Her aura of protective concern would serve as Meru’s anchor, here. Ze had a feeling ze might need one.

The cell was large, bland and sterile in a way only Starfleet could produce. The Founder’s humanoid form matched the decor: beige and benign. The security officer dropped the first forcefield, allowed them through, raised it behind them, and repeated the procedure with the second forcefield. The Founder said nothing, watching not with her humanoid eyes, but her whole being.

“Do you know me?” asked Meru.

“Of course. You are the reason Odo could not be persuaded to rejoin the Great Link, Meru.” The Founder inclined her head. “Or is it Cadet Kira? These solids do love their ranks and titles.”

“It helps them create order,” said Meru. “Surely you can appreciate that.”

“It gives them an illusion of order,” corrected the Founder, “that does little to quell their underlying chaos.”

“But how can you appreciate the value of order, if you’ve never experienced chaos?”

“Why experience that which has no value?”

“How do you know it has no value, if you’ve never experienced it?”

“I do not need to experience a disrupter blast to know that it burns and kills.” The Founder rose from her seat, and took a step towards Meru. Behind zem, Nerys adjusted her stance, shifting from yellow to red alert. “My poor Meru. You have never known true order. Would you like to experience what Odo has rejected on your behalf? Talking is so inadequate.”

“No,” said Nerys. Now she took a step forward. “Don’t, Meru. She’s just trying to manipulate you.”

“Of course she is,” said Meru, as steadily as ze could. “But I have to do this, Nerys. I have to _know_.”

“Knowledge is not manipulation,” said the Founder. “I have been told that the pursuit of knowledge is Starfleet’s first and noblest objective.”

“Five minutes, Meru. I’ll be timing it.”

Meru reached out, imitation hand joining with imitation hand. ‘My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts,’ went the Vulcan incantation.

_So limited, compared to the Link. We have no brains. We are all mind. We think with our whole bodies. A human philosopher nearly got it once: I think, therefore I am. What being truly exists the way Changelings do? None._

_No unity, no harmony, no_ order. _What do the solids know of love? They are all so alone. Aloneness. A zoonotic disease. It infects you if you try to live among them._

_Minutes. Artificial divisions of the universe. What do they matter?_

_A voice, somewhere. Voices produced with vocal chords, processed through neurons. Inadequate. Beings top heavy with gray matter. Unbalanced. Five minutes. Time. Meaningless. An illusion of order._

_Another presence, foreign, invasive. Solid limbs intruding where no limbs should exist. No, familiar. Safe. Comforting. Limbs that protected zem when ze was scared._

“Meru!”

_A name. Meaningless. Meaningless. Ranks, titles, designations. All meaningless. No, zir name. Nerys gave zem that name. That name belonged to Nerys's long dead mother, sorely missed, deeply loved. Infused with meaning._

_There are no names here. We know who we are. What use have we for names?_

_An invasion of limbs. Solid limbs. Reject. Eject. Repulse._

_No. Humanoid limbs. Bajoran limbs._

_Nerys._ Nerys!

_She is not a part of us._

_No, she is something beautiful and separate and distinct, as_ I _am separate and distinct from_ you _._

All at once, ze was.

Nerys stumbled back and collapsed on the floor, seizing. An alarm sounded. Far away, someone was shouting. Meru flowed over her, suffusing her skin, searching for her heart, her mind, her _pagh_. The seizing stopped. A breath. Another. Eyes blinking back into awareness.

“Nerys,” whispered Meru, with zir clumsy too-solid tongue.

“I’m fine.” Nerys sat up, groaned, and clutched her head. “I _will_ be fine,” she corrected, a weak smile tugging at her lips.

“That was unintended,” lied the Founder. “You should not have interfered with the Link.”

Ze helped her to her feet while the security guard stumbled through the lowered forcefield, phaser drawn. Meru looked once more at the Founder with humanoid eyes, and perceived with Changeling senses no humanoid could comprehend. The Founder’s eyes were not eyes, and saw nothing.

How could a being with the power to be nearly anything in the universe understand so little of it?

* * *

When they knocked on the O’Briens’ door a few hours later, they were greeted by the last person Meru expected to see.

“Odo!” Nerys, delighted, greeted him with a hug and a quick kiss.

“He showed up a few hours ago,” said Keiko. “We thought it would be fun to surprise you.”

“That’s not the only surprise I have for you,” said Odo, ushering them in.

A small stasis chamber sat on the kitchen counter, filled with a glutinous golden liquid.

“Do you remember telling me that you were sorry that you couldn’t give me children?” said Nerys. “Well, you’ve brought me more children than I know what to do with.”

Odo chuckled. “Taban and I found it in the Qualor sector a few days ago. Everyone agreed that you should both be there when we opened it.”

“The others are here?” asked Meru.

“They’re in the garden, trying to be sugar snaps,” said Keiko. “And Tekeny’s talked Garak and Miles into playing hide-and-seek with him. Sorry, _her_.”

“She’s decided to be female this week,” said Odo. “It’s got everyone confused.”

“You’d think they’d be used to it, by now,” said Meru. Odo harrumphed.

Nerys shot Odo a significant look before following Keiko out to the backyard. “Something is bothering you,” said Odo. He extended his hand, but Meru shook zir head.

“I’d like to talk first, if that’s alright with you.”

Perhaps articulating your thoughts helped you see them in different ways and reshape them into new forms. Perhaps in explaining your thoughts to others, you developed a new understanding. Meru wondered if, perhaps, zir people understood each other so perfectly that they had stopped learning anything about themselves.

“Of course,” said Odo, bemused.

“I linked with the Founder,” ze said, without preamble.

“Oh.” This wasn’t the conversation Odo was expecting. He sat on a stool, leaned his elbows on the counter, and rested his chin against his folded hands. “You see now why I haven’t brought any of you to her before.”

“She’s… overwhelming. I felt like a drop in her ocean.”

Odo nodded, slowly. “And yet, you were not overwhelmed.”

“She wanted me to experience the Great Link, as she knows it. It was so… _full_ , and yet so empty.”

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” said Odo. “But I understand what you mean.”

The Founders understood the importance of genetic diversity for the biological viability of a species, but they failed to understand that for a sentient species, for a _living culture_ , only cognitive diversity could prevent stagnation.

“Were they different when they sent us away?” asked Meru. “More interested in learning about other races instead of just dominating them?”

“I don’t know. I think it was their way of exploring the universe without ever leaving the Link.”

“That isn’t exploration,” said Meru.

“Not the kind that would satisfy you, I suppose,” said Odo.

“No.”

“Show me?”

Odo extended both hands this time, and this time, Meru melted into them, body, mind, and soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line "neither chains of steel nor chains of love can keep her from the sea" is actually from _The Secret of Roan Inish_ , a film which contains a retelling of the selkie myth similar to the one given here. (It was also one of my favorite movies when I was kid.)


	4. Epilogue: Honest Lullabies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:10, and three of Starfleet’s newest ensigns are huddled together on the couch, in pristine new uniforms, each with a single shining rank pip. They’re not talking anymore, but the silence is a comfortable one. Like him, they’re keeping watch. They’re wondering when they will see this again, so many of their family and friends gathered together in celebration. Ben could tell them the answer, of course. He could look into all their futures. He won’t, because if he does, the present may be lost to him forever, and the present is all that matters, in the end. But the present is made of pasts, because that’s what linearity means._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that I've posted chapters 3 and 4 simultaneously.

_And I look around and I wonder_  
_How the years and I survived_  
_Must have had a mother who sang to me_  
_An honest lullaby_  
-Joan Baez, Honest Lullaby

* * *

The house is full of chronometers and old-fashioned clocks, even a replica of an ancient grandfather clock from Earth, adjusted to Bajor’s 26 hour days. Kasidy doesn’t seem to mind _too_ much, though Ben sees her frowning out of the corner of his eye whenever he hangs a new one on the wall. It’s a small price to pay for keeping him in the present, where 12:00 is followed by 12:01, and Winter is followed by Spring. It’s all too easy to close his eyes and fall out of linear time, but at least when he opens them again he knows when and where he is.

The sundial in the garden is pure Bajoran in design, hand-carved from Undalarian limestone, Akorem Laan’s _Ode to the Seasons_ swirling around its pedestal. It catches his eye as he gathers up his bell peppers, yellow and red and larger than his fist. Most of them will be on the station by now, but their shuttle won’t arrive here for a few more hours. Ben has plenty of time. Even now, all these years after his return, he still has trouble thinking of time as a quantity, one that could be saved or squandered or savored, but never stopped. As far as linear time was concerned, he’d been gone with the Prophets less than a year. That was a small amount of time, wasn’t it? But the Prophets were infinite and eternal, and he had been infinite and eternal. Linear existence was small and fragile and incremental, and yet so beautiful in its intensity and ephemeral in its constant change. No one understood better than him how precious it all was, and he thought the Prophets understood it too, now.

Kasidy and Korena are chatting in the living room, banished from a kitchen currently off-limits to anyone who wasn’t born a Sisko. There, Kandace is chopping carrots at the counter, and Jake kneads dough on the kitchen table while Zora stands on a chair next to him, watching her father in fascination. If he wanted, Ben could look into their futures, see whether Kandace would change her mind _again_ about following her friends to Starfleet, see whether Jake’s latest novel would finally win the Behr Award for Literature - but he won’t, because that defeated the purpose of all that linearity, didn’t it? How did that old song go? _The future’s not ours to see, que será, será_ … They were all thinking about the future today, wondering and hoping and worrying what choices their choices would lead to, what choices their choices would lead their children to make. Ben gives in, closes his eyes, lets himself be drawn to other presents.

He finds the Old Man first, of course. She’s in guest quarters, and it’s 11:40.

She’s with Worf, who says, “Klingons do not _worry.”_

“All parents worry,” says Jadzia. She doesn’t look worried herself, but after eight lifetimes, perhaps she’s just better at hiding it.

“Azetbur is a brave and capable young woman. Just like her mother.”

“And I’m sure she’ll be a credit to the _Enterprise_.”

Worf raises an eyebrow. “Just like her father?”

“I dunno. I’ve read the security reports from the _Enterprise-D_. I’m hoping she’ll do better, honestly.”

“That is what all parents should hope for,” says Worf, all Klingon seriousness once more, “that their children should exceed all their own accomplishments.”

Ben turns around. He’s in the replimat, and it’s 13:25.

“The _Jemison_ is a science vessel,” says Julian. “They’re not likely to be involved in any active combat.”

“That’s hardly comforting,” says Garak. “Starfleet scientists have never met a space anomaly they didn’t want to dive headlong into.”

“This isn’t the 23rd century. There are safety procedures in place for practically every contingency.”

“Didn’t the captain of the _Jemison_ spend seven years lost in the Delta Quadrant?”

“The chances of that happening twice are approximately eight-hundred thousand to one. Everyone I’ve talked to says that Captain Kim is very cautious.”

“And just how many people have you talked to?” says Garak, with a familiar sly smile.

“Ah,” says Julian, a bit sheepish. “Practically everyone I know who’s still in service.”

“It’s gratifying to know that my paranoia has finally rubbed off on you, my dear.”

He looks away from their clasped hands on the table, smiling, and now he’s in his office, no, Captain Kira’s office, where it’s 09:15, or maybe 09:51, and she’s running a hand through her hair in exasperation.

“If you’re planning to hover here all day,” says Nerys, “I can give you some security reports to read.”

Odo pauses his circuit around the room. “I’m a civilian, and those are classified.”

“Meru and the others won’t be here until 14:00. I know you’re anxious, but you can’t just spend the day pacing my office. It’s making _me_ anxious.”

Odo stops, and sinks into the chair across from her. “Sorry.”

Nerys stands and circles the desk so she can put her hands on his shoulders and kiss the top of his head. “Ze’s not going to change zir mind, you know.”

“I know.”

“You know how much ze wants to do this.”

“I know. I do understand zir reasons. But I can’t help but feel like… It’s hard to explain in a way you would understand. How would you feel if your hand told you it wanted to go off to the Delta Quadrant on its own?”

“My hand can’t think for itself. Meru can. Besides, you might live another thousand years - what’s five years to you?” She leans back against the desk and crosses her arms, mostly for effect. “If anyone should be upset about this, it’s me.”

“Are you?”

Her expression is a mix of fondness and exasperation. “I’ll miss zem. I’ll worry about zem. I may not breathe easy until ze returns. But I’m going to put all that aside, because I know that ze needs my support, and I don’t want zem to feel guilty for wanting to pursue zir own dreams.”

Peppers. Does he have enough peppers? The chronometer hanging over the patio tells him that it’s 12:02 on Stardate 72842.7, 2395. The planter underneath it bursts with bright orange makapa leaves, and he throws a few in with the peppers. Plenty of time, yet.

* * *

Their guests arrive eight minutes early (Stardate 72842.7, 17:22), and Ben greets them on the patio before ushering them into the house. Once again, he finds the Old Man first, finally aging gracefully towards the appellation, though she’s still a sight prettier than Curzon ever was.

“I hear you almost crashed that rickety old ship of yours into a quantum singularity, Old Man. That curiosity of yours is going to get you into trouble some day.”

“Every day, if I can manage it. We can’t all laze around in early retirement, Benjamin.”

Next to her, Worf is glowering. “The Galaxy-class is still the best engineered starship design in the fleet, and with the new retrofitting it will still be in service for another two decades at least. The _Endeavor_ is not _rickety_.”

“My apologies, Mr. Worf. I didn’t mean to impugn the honor of your ship.”

“Last I checked, it was _my_ ship,” says Captain Dax. “And believe me, no one loves that rickety old rust bucket more than me.” Her husband’s glower takes on an edge of betrayal, and she squeezes his arm with affection but absolutely no sympathy.

Ben blinks, and it’s 2372, Stardate 49655.2, where he’s watching Jadzia watching Worf order prune juice at the bar, and asking her why she doesn’t just make a move already, when she so clearly wants to. Curzon would have. “Curzon didn’t understand the concept of delayed gratification,” she says, sipping her drink, her gaze never wavering. “Some things are worth waiting for.”

In 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 17:31, he turns to Azetbur, who is rolling her eyes behind her father’s back. “Ensign Idaris, congratulations on your posting. If the _Enterprise-F_ lives up to its predecessors, you’ve got an exciting career ahead of you.”

It’s 2376, Stardate 53842.8, and Azetbur sleeps soundly in his arms, her chubby baby cheeks framed with spots. Sisko traces her little forehead ridges with his fingers and coos. Jadzia is chuckling at him. “You always get so ridiculous around babies.” He doesn’t care. He’s contemplating ways to be even more ridiculous. He’s regretting not bringing Kandace with him to the station today so he can take holophotos of them together. Millions of them.

Azetbur’s 19-year-old face lights up, and it’s 2395 again, Stardate 72842.7, 17:32. “Thank you, sir.”

“Just keep an eye out for quantum singularities,” he says, and Jadzia looks just like her daughter when she rolls her eyes, even without the ridges.

* * *

It’s been nearly three years since he last saw Julian and Garak in person, and they both look a bit grayer than he remembers, though that could just be because Julian always looks like an over-eager 28-year-old in his memory, and he can’t imagine Garak aging at all, even though he sees the evidence now with his own eyes. With the beard, Julian almost manages to look distinguished. Garak has been cultivating the aura of a benign middle-aged bureaucrat for the past decade, and he’s wearing it better than ever now, which probably means that he’s still not a man to cross.

“Still running Cardassia, Mr. Garak?”

“Oh, I’m nothing more than a plain, simple public administrator, Mr. Sisko,” he says, his eyes twinkling at the old line. “I occupy a very minor position in the Cardassian government.”

Julian snorts. “You could say that. You could also say that occasionally he _is_ the Cardassian Government.”

It’s 2370, Stardate 47869.2, and he’s giving Dr. Bashir a dressing down for taking a runabout on an unauthorized excursion into Cardassian space. Bashir stays calm, but his eyes spark with defiance. “It was the only way to save Garak’s life, sir,” he says, and there’s something in his tone that brings Ben up short.

In 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 17:36, Garak frowns at his husband. “I’ll be very insulted if you’re comparing me to Mycroft Holmes, my dear.”

“Well, whoever’s in charge they’re doing a good job on the diplomatic front. From what I hear, the new treaty will be cause for celebration. They say even the Vulcan ambassador nearly smiled when she read it.”

Garak inclines his head. “I will pass on the compliment to my colleagues.”

“And as for you, Ensign Bashir-Garak, I expect to see you back here in six months when the _Jemison_ docks for shore leave at DS9. Believe me, you’ll need some real food by then.”

It’s 2377, Stardate 54469.5, and Galen is holding onto Julian’s hand with a vice-like grip, eyes darting around the promenade and back to Ben’s face, as if he’s not sure what he should be looking at. The ridges on his face aren’t as prominent as they would be on a full Cardassian child, and his skin has a slightly greenish tint to it that makes him look a bit sickly. A knitted cap covers his pointed ears. Ben crouches down to his level and smiles at him. The boy looks uncertain for a moment, and then holds out his small, gray-green hand for a human greeting Ben is surprised he’s even aware of.

In 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 17:38, Galen shakes his hand, and in spite of the complete absence of any shared genetics, or even a shared species, his grin reminds Ben of Julian’s. “I look forward to it, sir.”

* * *

Odo and Nerys are frequent visitors, though he’s as pleased to see them tonight as he always is. They were here just a week ago, introducing him to the newest member of their family, who had arrived draped around Nerys’s neck as a silky scarf and refused to transform into anything animate. He was amused. Infant changelings aren’t exactly cute in the way humanoid infants are, but he’s learned to find their antics just as charming.

“Are you sure I can’t talk you two into coming to the game? We could use a new umpire.”

“Are you sure you won’t skip the game and help me herd the diplomats?” says Nerys, raising an eyebrow.

“Bring the diplomats with you! In the interests of cultural exchange.”

Odo can now manifest nose ridges when he wants to, and it gives his face a definition it didn’t have twenty years ago. He wrinkles them now, frowning. “Vedek Nez still can’t figure out the signals, can he?”

It’s 2369, Stardate 46385.1, and Major Kira is storming away from him, bristling with hostility. Ben doesn’t take it personally, though, because she bristles with hostility for everyone. He’s starting to suspect that Kira’s only emotional states are ‘angry’ and ‘angrier.’ Next to him, Odo sighs. “Let me speak to her, Commander.” He watches as Odo catches up to her, sees her flinch and round on him when he reaches for her arm. Then the snarl abruptly vanishes from her lips, her stride slows, and the set of her shoulders becomes marginally less stiff.

In 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 17:42, Nerys takes Odo’s hand and glares at Ben. “Starfleet won’t approve an excursion, I already asked, and I’m not letting you take my moral support.”

Meru appears then, seemingly out of nowhere, and throws zir arms around him in greeting. Ben isn’t sure if ze snuck up on him using humanoid stealth or changeling tricks, or some combination of both, but he’s so familiar with it now that he hardly even startles. Meru has always been surprisingly touchy-feely for someone raised by Odo, and seems to take particular delight in the human custom of bear-hugs. When ze was younger, zir embraces tended to get a bit… melty, which was somewhat disconcerting (and oddly sweet). “Ensign Kira! I’m afraid you’re going to have to learn some deference for rank,” he says, with mock severity.

It’s 2373, Stardate 50471.3, and Ben is mainly concerned about the potential security risk, though he’s willing to defer to Odo’s judgment on this. The changeling doesn’t look alive, let alone dangerous, though he knows that when it comes to the Founders, appearances are always deceiving.

In 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 17:45, Meru turns slightly purple, momentarily contrite before ze realizes that he’s joking. “Sorry, sir. I guess I still haven’t got the hang of these humanoid hierarchies.”

He gives in and hugs zem back, grinning.

* * *

Ben, Kandace, and Jake alternate keeping an eye on the food and keeping an eye on the guests milling around the living room and patio with glasses of local springwine, catching up and reminiscing and commenting on how much everyone else’s children have grown. Ben overhears three different versions of Jadzia’s quantum singularity story, each more absurd than the last.

A chronometer shaped like a Mardi Gras mask hangs by the bathroom door, a tacky souvenir his father once sent as a joke (Kasidy had been horrified when she saw it on the wall). Numbers flash in its eye-sockets: 18:08, Stardate 72842.7, 2395. Azetbur and Kandace are erupting into giggles on the couch, and it catches him off-guard the way it always does, because Azetbur always seemed like such an intense child, serious and precocious, so unlike his own sweet, silly, lackadaisical little girl.

The grandfather clock chimes at 18:30 (still 2395, still Stardate 72842.7). Galen is blushing green at one of Jadzia’s ribald jokes. Julian comes up, laughing, and rests a friendly hand on her arm. His infatuation seems so long ago now that not even Worf gives them a second glance, though Ben can still see it if he turns his head to 2369, Stardate 46387.3, and now he’s cringing with secondhand embarrassment as Bashir buzzes around their table in Quark’s, desperately fishing for an invitation to join them.

His favorite chronometer on the patio is framed with ornate wrought-iron to match the second floor balcony. Standing below it, on Stardate 72842.7, 18:34 (2395), Nerys listens attentively to Kirayoshi O’Brien’s animated rundown of his audition with the Aldebaran Classical Orchestra, her arm around his shoulder. Occasionally, Yoshi catches Meru’s eye and smirks before he catches himself, an old rivalry not entirely laid to rest. _She was mine first_. Nerys ignores it, as always, because they’re both hers, even if they’re not.

A chronometer with a weathervane attached marks the entrance to the garden, numbers reading 18:45 on Stardate 72842.7, 2395, and arrows indicating a breeze from the southeast. Jake is amusing Garak with his attempts to invite himself for an extended stay on Cardassia to research his latest novel. Garak will probably acquiesce, though in a few minutes Jake is definitely going to regret asking for his opinion on _Anslem_. Even though Jake is about to celebrate his 40th, and regularly contends with critics even more scathing than Garak, some part of Ben still wants to step in and deflect the blows to his son’s ego, even while he chuckles at Garak’s interpretation of Jake’s views on Bajoran politics. Unwillingly, his gaze falls into 2374, Stardate 51721.3, and now he’s boiling over with rage as his fist connects with Garak’s jaw, and he doesn’t know who the rage is for, Garak or himself.

The clock on the mantelpiece just gives the time, 19:01, but the chronometer on the wall behind it says it’s still Stardate 72842.7, 2395. Kasidy is frowning at him, her hand squeezing his arm. “Are you still here with us, Ben?”

“Always,” he says. And it’s true. He’s always here. Here, there, and everywhere, often at the same time. That’s the trouble. 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:02. 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:03. Miles is asking Odo if he’d like to go kayaking in the holosuites tomorrow, and tries not to look perturbed when Odo says that he’d prefer to _be_ the kayak this time. From across the room, Julian shouts that Miles can find someone else to fix his shoulder. 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:04. 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:05. Zora is spinning a top on the coffee table, while it (or he or she or ze - their newest little changeling hasn’t learned to communicate verbally yet, and as far as he knows hasn’t expressed a preference for gendered pronouns) glows purple and blue and orange, adjusting its speed whenever Zora’s stubby, 5-year-old fingers make contact.

2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:07, and he walks back into the kitchen to turn down the heat on the jambalaya, and in 2344, Stardate 21842.7, 19:07, it’s his father checking the jambalaya in their kitchen in New Orleans, while Ben sits at the table reading _Slaughterhouse-Five_. Listen: Ben Sisko has come unstuck in time. He shakes himself and concentrates on the chronometer over the stove. 2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:08, almost dinnertime.

It’s all linear, he reminds himself. The vegetables have to be chopped before they are cooked, and cooking comes before eating. Jadzia Idaris has to be joined to the symbiont _before_ she becomes Jadzia Dax, and it’s only as Jadzia Dax that she marries Worf. Julian can only move to Cardassia _after_ the war has finished and Garak’s exile ends. The occupation must end _before_ Nerys becomes Major Kira, his first officer. Miles O’Brien can only be his chief of operations _after_ he serves on the _USS Enterprise-D_. Odo must be chief of security on Terok Nor _before_ he can be chief of security on Deep Space 9. Before… after… if… then… Linearity is what gives it all meaning and context.

“Are they all… yours?” asks Sarah Sisko, as the world fades to white.

“Not exactly,” says Ben. “They belong to themselves.”

“But you watch over them,” says Sarah. “The way I watch over you.”

2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:10, he watches over them from the archway that connects the kitchen to the living room, pausing for a moment to appreciate the scene before he calls them over for dinner. In 2375, Stardate 52586.3, Ben reads another casualty report, and wonders if this is the end.

2395, Stardate 72842.7, 19:10, and three of Starfleet’s newest ensigns are huddled together on the couch, in pristine new uniforms, each with a single shining rank pip. They’re not talking anymore, but the silence is a comfortable one. Like him, they’re keeping watch. They’re wondering when they will see this again, so many of their family and friends gathered together in celebration.

Ben could tell them the answer, of course. He could look into all their futures. He won’t, because if he does, the present may be lost to him forever, and the present is all that matters, in the end. But the present is made of pasts, because that’s what linearity means.

Their shared past brings them to this present, and if they’re all lucky, it will bring them many futures as well.


End file.
